Invoice finance and invoice discounting are used by small and medium sized businesses to improve their cashflow and fund their future expansion.
Prior to joining Aldermore, Ben held a variety of roles within the RBS Group, both with RBS Invoice Finance and Lombard Asset Finance.

Ben has considerable experience of working with SMEs in the West Midlands and Warwickshire.

Tony Smedley said: “I’m delighted to welcome Ben to the team at Aldermore Invoice Finance. Ben has a lot of experience working with small and medium sized businesses and I have no doubt he’ll be able to make a very positive contribution.”

Ben Hayward said: “Small firms in the Midlands area desperately need support from banks that are willing to listen to their needs and provide effective financial solutions. Aldermore has a strong reputation as one of the UK’s most innovative invoice finance providers and I’m excited about being part of such a dynamic team.”

Aricle contributed by Aldermore

Damon Walford said: “I’m delighted to be joining Aldermore, which is one of the UK’s fastest growing and dynamic new banks. Cashflow finance is critically important for SMEs across the country and Aldermore has a proven track record of developing a range of innovative financial solutions for British businesses.

“As the economy struggles to shake-off the effects of recession, business owners are looking for financial support to enable them to exploit business opportunities which present themselves. Aldermore is dedicated to helping SMEs and has exciting plans for the future and it’s great to be part of the team.”

Ian Wilkins, Group Managing Director of Commercial Finance at Aldermore, said: “I would like to extend a warm welcome to Damon and wish him every success in his new role. Damon brings with him considerable experience which he’ll be able to put to good use as he guides the business through the next important stage of its development.”

Aldermore recently announced that it made £150 million of invoice finance funding available to SMEs during September, an increase of 42% over the same period last year. Client numbers also increased by 19% over the past year. To put this achievement in context, data released by the Asset Based Finance Association shows that total advances made by all member firms grew by 12% during the same period and there was no growth in the total number of new clients.

Across all of its business lines, Aldermore has lent £470 million to small and medium sized businesses, taking the value of loans on its books to £970 million and total assets to more than £1.2 billion.

The bank has 8 regional business offices, providing invoice finance, asset finance and commercial mortgage facilities to more than 9,500 business customers.

Article contributed by Aldermore

The bank has also increased deposits from savers by 12% to £304m in Q2.

Aldermore was the first of the new wave of post credit crunch banks to be launched in the UK. Aldermore’s lending activity is focused on small and medium sized businesses.

Comments Phillip Monks, Aldermore CEO, “It is a great result and we really seem to be building a lot of momentum. It is an especially strong performance as we have been careful to ensure that we are lending only to credit-worthy and robust SMEs.

“We have also studiously avoided taking on more in deposits than we can sensibly put to work.

“Even with those restraints, we are growing at the kind of pace that we feel really vindicates our proposition, which is to provide savers and borrowers with straightforward, transparent and fairly priced products.”

Aldermore explains that much of its success in attracting new business, both from SMEs looking for funding and from savers looking for a competitive interest rate, has been driven by word of mouth.

Phillip Monks explains they have undertaken their expansion with minimal advertising.

Says Phillip, ”That says to me that there is huge pent up demand from SMEs for funding to help them expand.

“Similarly there is a huge pool of consumers out there who feel that the range of savings products they are offered have too many strings attached, are too opaque or just offer a poor interest rate.

“But I have worked in banking for a long time and although we know we are delivering great growth now, we are going to make sure we don’t get complacent. Banks always seem to make the mistake of taking their customers for granted.”

Aldermore says that the key to its savings strategy is simply to offer consistently competitive rates. All their fixed rate bonds and ISAs have featured in the Top 10 of the appropriate Moneyfacts Best Buy tables throughout the year. Existing customers are offered either the same or higher rates than those available to new customers.

Aldermore says that it is following the same principles as it rolls out its mortgage offering which is developing a strong following amongst professional financial advisers across the country.

As part of the expansion of its SME lending operations, Aldermore opened a new office in Reading on August 16th.

Aldermore already has eight offices across the UK in Glasgow, Manchester, Cheshire (Wilmslow), West Yorkshire (Cleckheaton), Birmingham, Peterborough, Oxford (Abingdon) and Maidstone.

Contributed by Aldermore

Since its formation through the merger of Base Commercial Mortgages and asset finance lender Ruffler bank by private equity house AnaCap in June 2009, Aldermore has certainly been busy.

September 2009 saw the addition of Absolute Invoice Finance to the bank’s balance sheet, while steadily increasing panels of brokers in both asset finance and commercial property divisions have ensured growth despite an extremely quiet winter for the industry as a whole.

Most recently, the purchase of Heritable Asset Finance’s portfolio at the start of March saw around £35 million added to the Aldermore pot, virtually doubling the bank’s lease book to make up a quarter of its total assets.

The next step

All very impressive, given that Aldermore’s IT infrastructure for asset finance is not yet finished. Division head George Ashworth oversaw the completion of its first phase last month, allowing back office support for the bank’s current sales model.

This model is aimed at financing “hard” assets with good resale potential in the event of a customer default, in sectors such as construction, materials handling, agriculture and manufacturing.

At the moment, deals with a value of £100,000 form the majority of Aldermore’s asset finance lending. “However” says Ashworth, “with the next phase of the IT build, we can start to bring down deal value, and support a smaller ticket business.”

This expansion into smaller-value, higher-volume business will support Aldermore’s development of broker-led business, a policy which Stephens says applies across the bank, in invoice discounting and property lending as well as in asset finance.

Casting the net

Currently, Aldermore uses a panel of 28 asset finance brokers, and is in a position to consider further introducers. In commercial property lending, for example, the bank is adding four or five companies to its intermediary roster each month.

Beyond broker business, the new IT system will provide Aldermore with the means to make significant moves into the vendor finance space. At the moment, Ashworth’s division manages a handful of sales aid programmes, but it will soon be capable of developing new ones and accepting schemes introduced by brokers.

While asset finance business has been centralised at Aldermore’s head office in Peterborough until now, a network of business development managers (BDMs) is being put in place in order to give more comprehensive regional coverage.

These BDMs will work from the same locations as Absolute Invoice Finance, which came into Aldermore’s possession with a fully fledged network of regional offices. This congruence, says Stephens, will not just be physical. Cross-selling is central to Aldermore’s strategy, as one would expect from a company formed from lenders in three different fields of finance provision.

First on the list

From here on, Aldermore’s strategy is unambiguous. “Our overall strategic objective is to be recognised as a bank providing first class service” says Stephens. “We want to be one of the first names on any SME’s list when it comes to acquiring equipment in an asset class we support, such as materials handling.”

The way to achieve this, in the opinions of both Stephens and Ashworth, is for Aldermore to identify further markets of interest and make rapid progress in building a name in them. For an example of this strategy, one need only look so far as the move into the Professions finance market through the purchase of HAF.

For now, Aldermore’s greatest strengths are the speed at which it can make decisions, and the liquidity – albeit not limitless – with which it can back them up. If it can keep such tight lines of communication as it takes on more staff and more business, its name will be heard more and more often in UK leasing.

Article contributed by Fred Crawley – Senior Reporter, Leasing Life & Motor Finance

Aldermore is the new name in British banking which will provide a range of competitive asset finance facilities for small and medium sized businesses.Borne out of the recent merger of Ruffler Bank and Base Commercial Mortgages, Aldermore is shunning the ‘big is best’ approach adopted by larger banks, in favour of a ‘specialists succeed’ strategy adopted by successful companies in other market sectors.

Phillip Monks, Chief Executive of Aldermore, explains: “Small and medium sized enterprises have had enough of dealing with banks which do not understand either their markets or needs. Aldermore intends to address this issue head-on, by providing a service which is unashamedly specialist.

“We will only operate in markets where we have a real understanding of their requirements. We believe that if we can construct financial deals based on a detailed understanding of the needs of specific market sectors, then we can succeed in areas where bigger banks have failed to show any real interest.”

The business banking services offered by Aldermore will include commercial mortgages, asset finance and leasing facilities, which will be funded via retail deposits raised via a range of fixed rate bonds, notice accounts and ISAs.

Monks said: “Being small and specialist has proven time and again to be a successful strategy for many thousands of British businesses and I believe banking is no different. It is time for banking to get back to its roots and that is what Aldermore is setting out to do.”

Small and medium sized businesses can get further information about the services being offered by Aldermore by going to: www.aldermore.co.uk or by phoning 01733 404515.

Phillip Monks, CEO, Aldermore

Phillip.Monks@anacapfp.com