Maple Financial is looking to bring major lender discipline to the alternatives sector, following Nesto Group’s recent strategic equity investment through its CMLS subsidiary, a deal reported by CMT last month.
The company was founded by industry icon John Webster, who retires in 2023, reviving the brand he sold to Scotiabank in 2006. The company has spent the past two years working with brokers and financing partners across the country to better understand their pain points.
“The consistent theme we get from our broker partners who have been with him for 30 years is that they have the most difficulty with alternative lending,” said Daniel Webster, John’s son and president of Maple Financial.
“We spent the better part of 18 months working with potential financing partners to try to deliver what we thought was a unique product shelf and bring our underwriting philosophy and model into this space,” he added.
Behind the deal: How Maple and CMLS aligned
Webster said it was during this process that he began discussions with CMLS Senior Vice President of Residential Andrew Gilmour about a partnership that would allow Maple to leverage CMLS’s institutional backbone and digital infrastructure.
“It speeds up both organizations,” Gilmore said. “Building technical and institutional relationships takes a lot of time and investment, so allowing Maple to come on board is great, and we already have access to the expertise, experience and relationships that Maple provides.”
The deal closed on October 18, with CMLS acquiring a minority stake in Maple Financial. While the two brands will continue to operate independently, Gilmour and Webster said the partnership will bring new products and services to market “in a short period of time.”
“Andrew and I are working behind the scenes on several very exciting product enhancements that we expect to complete in the coming months,” said Webster. “By the first quarter, we will have two to three new products on our shelves to expand the non-B-20 market,” Gilmour added.
The ultimate goal of this strategic investment is to address the pain points Webster identified in the alternative lending space and attempt to make the experience more similar to dealing with a traditional financial institution.
“The pieces of Tetris just fit together,” Gilmour added. “Both teams bring something unique to the table and it’s a case of one plus one equals five.”
Solve the pain points of brokers in alternative fields
In speaking with brokers, Webster said many complained that clients in the alternative space faced inconsistent terms, hidden fees and onerous application requirements, often due to unreliable back-end funding.
“For brokers, it’s not as predictable as the main market because the rules in the credit box are more clearly defined,” he said. “CMLS is a ratings servicer and NHA-approved lender, which is a truly unique point of differentiation because these are agency-sponsored alternative mortgages.”
It also means, for example, that Tier 1 mortgage agents in Ontario can handle agency-sponsored alternative mortgage programs without going through the traditional principal-broker oversight model.
Webster said that following this strategic investment agreement, Maple can now offer a broader suite of products to a wider range of alternative lending customers.
“Once you get out of prime time, we have products and swim lanes for every borrower,” he said. “For us, you submit just one document; we will adjudicate whether it starts flowing, and if it doesn’t fit into our upstream program, we will move it downstream to the product that best suits that borrower.”
Alternatives to traditional alternatives
Webster said that unlike many MIC and private lenders that emphasize underlying assets, Maple remains more focused on borrower capabilities and exit strategies rather than just the property securing the loan.
“Even though we’re at the downstream end of the waterfall, which would be classified as more of a private offering, we’re still reviewing the revenue in detail,” he said. “We’re always interested in understanding the borrower’s capacity and ability to repay because we want to know if they’re going to have an exit strategy to graduate, and I think that’s a huge difference in the approach in this area.”
Webster added that the select team of highly productive brokers that Maple has brought on board to date are pleased to have a one-stop shop for alternative lending, reducing the number of applications they need to submit for each client.
“CMLS brings all of its service expertise and best-in-class approach to these partners and, combined with Nesto’s incredible technology stack, increases efficiencies for our underwriters going forward,” said Webster. “This kind of institutional rigor is a huge win for the alternative space.”
CMLS, for its part, will now be able to expand its presence in the broker channel and provide brokers with a greater choice of products.
“From a philosophical perspective, Maple and Seamless view this market the same way,” Gilmore said. “Providing institutional rigor means having a fair and equitable product that brokers can understand and support, fully understanding what they are bringing their clients into.”
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Alternative Lenders Alternative Lending Andrew Gilmore Daniel Webster partners with Maple Financial Mortgage Industry Nest
Last modified: November 2, 2025
