Online mortgage introducer eChoice announced yesterday that its operations have been placed in the hands of voluntary administrators after a secured creditor said it could "no longer continue to support the group in its current form".In a statement published on the company's website, eChoice confirmed the appointment of Geoffrey Reidy and Andrew Barnden of Rodgers Reidy as voluntary administrators of eChoice Limited and 13 subsidiaries.Welas Pty Ltd, a longstanding backer of the company, initiated the appointment. Welas is an entity associated with Tony Wales, a long-serving director and shareholder of Firstfolio, the financial services group which acquired eChoice in 2008. "Welas took the step to appoint the voluntary administrators to enable eChoice to assess its options on how to secure and sustain the future viability of the business," the voluntary administrators said in the statement."Excluding the historical debt burden, the business remains a viable opportunity in the hands of a new owner."Reidy and Barnden said they had not been appointed over any group companies with existing contracts with brokers and lenders."According, the administration will not affect ongoing third party stakeholder contractual obligations, such as trail payments by lenders to these companies and payments of trail by these companies to brokers," the voluntary administrators said."The voluntary administrators will consider opportunities to sell the business and are already aware of one major financial institution which is interested in the business."The administrators said the business would continue to operate as usual "as far as possible" with a focus on ensuring employees, lenders and brokers are able to deliver for customers.eChoice has not yet published operating results for the six months to the end of June, however accounts for the six months to the end of December 2016 show the company had total borrowings of A$45.2 million.The group posted an interim net loss of $7.12 million and was sitting on net assets of $130,000 on December 31 last year.eChoice was founded in 1998 and was one of the first online startups to make an impact on the retail financial services sector in Australia.