The company, which is part of the Irwin Mitchell Group, announced that its revenue increased to £9.7 million.

Their results also indicated that the first quarter of 2019/20 has been particularly strong for the business, with revenue 12% ahead of target due to an increased amount of work from key clients.

As a result of this business growth, Ascent has increased its headcount from 128 at the end of April 2019 to over 150, making this an increase of 18% within just three months.

Ascent has offices in Glasgow, Manchester and Sheffield and provides office and field-based arrears management and legal solutions to a vast range of clients within Britain, including most of the country’s leading financial institutions. The company has over 100,000 customers and had over £6 billion of assets under management in the last financial year.

The business was the first in its markets to ask the customers it engages with on behalf of its clients to publicly rate its services on Trustpilot, the independent online review platform. Ascent currently has a trust rating of 8.4 out of a possible 10, which allows Trustpilot to label them as ‘Great’.

CEO of Ascent, Niall Gilhooley, said: “As a specialist provider of arrears management and recovery services, the continuation of low interest rates has led to challenging market conditions in our core markets over the past year. However, thanks to our strong client relationships and the ethical, compliant and effective services we provide, our volume of work has increased across several of our service provisions.”

He added: “Also with a very strong start to 2019/20, we expect our market share to continue to grow and are on course to deliver well in excess of £10m of revenue this financial year. We also plan to invest further in our digital capabilities, improving accessibility for customers and ensuring we stay at the forefront of the market.

“It is becoming increasingly important to financial institutions that their suppliers’ culture and values fit with their own. If we are doing our jobs right, we can actually help reduce stress and worry for people dealing with debt by putting them back in control of their finances. I believe that our culture of doing the right thing for the customer, along with exceeding client expectations, is what is behind our continued success - a clear demonstration of the fantastic team of people we have in our business.”