Aldermore, the British bank with a regional offices across the UK, has created an asset based lending division, which will be led by Ian Wilkins.  Mr Wilkins will become group managing director for invoice finance and asset finance.

He joined Aldermore with the bank’s acquisition last year of invoice finance specialist Absolute Invoice Finance, where he had worked for nine years.

Launched in 2009, Aldermore focuses its lending activity on small and medium-sized businesses. In its first year, Aldermore lent more than £300m to SMEs.

The bank has grown steadily since then with funding to SMEs in the second quarter totalling £302m.

Philip Monks, the chief executive of Aldermore, said: “Our strategy since launch has been to couple fairly priced and transparent products with taking a personal approach to the SMEs we lend to.

“Ian, with his considerable expertise in business banking and commercial lending helped make that formula work so well at Aldermore’s Invoice Finance operation, and I know that he will achieve even more in his expanded role.”

Aldermore Bank website: http://www.aldermore.co.uk/