UK E-loan branch snapped up by Moneygator

It is believed that the company, which had ambitions to sell mortgages over mobile phones, went for under £1m.

While E-loan's parent company has had considerable success in the US, servicing around 25 per cent of the online lending market, the UK arm failed to live up to the fanfare it received when first launched in January 2000.

After just 10 months of operation, its high profile chief executive, Andrew Armishaw, the former CEO of HSBC's internet banking arm First Direct, left. Half the operation's IT staff were also axed after its parent announced a restructure.

In January, the UK and European operations were broken up, after the latter's chief executive, Mirko Siepmann, said the European business would not have made a profit for another three or four years.