THE regional director for Aldermore in Scotland has declared his ambition for the challenger bank to provide the full suite of banking services to customers north of the Border.
The Aldermore operation in Scotland has focused largely on providing invoice finance facilities for small and medium-sized enterprises since coming into being four and a half years ago.
Aldermore, which launched here following the bank's acquisition of Cattles plc in 2009, has since grown its loan book to Scots SMEs to £20m from £8.5m in that time.
Its client roster has also risen to 150 from 100 businesses.
Regional director Andrew Curry, who joined Aldermore three and a half years ago, said that the bank's activities in Scotland also extend to some residential and commercial mortgages.
But in time he hopes the Glasgow-based division expands to cover the gamut of operations the bank offers around the UK, including savings and asset finance.
Speaking shortly before the bank celebrated its fifth birthday, Mr Curry said: "Although Glasgow is primarily the invoice finance piece, we do have residential and commercial mortgages as well.
"And I would like to think that longer term the intention would be to build a team operating out of Glasgow that does the whole thing."
Aldermore deals with Scottish companies with turnover ranging from £250,000 to £20m, typically in "sell and forget" businesses such as recruitment, haulage and human resources.
Providing both factoring and invoice discount services, it steps in to fill the credit gap where supplying companies face waits of up to 70 days for invoices to get paid.
Mr Curry, who leads a team of 15 staff in Glasgow, said the area of invoice finance has grown to become a "very sizeable market" since it first emerged in the 1960s, noting that Aldermore's competitors range from fellow independents such as Metro Bank to offshoots of high street banks.
He said there are "fewer players" and fewer opportunities" for invoice finance players in Scotland compared with London and the south-east of England, chiefly because there are not as many businesses. But he insists the Scottish market has its advantages.
Mr Curry said: "The difference is that there are more competitors [in London] as well.
"When we go out and look at a business we are much more likely to do the business than one of our competitors in the south of England."
Aldermore was one of several challengers created to capitalise on the disillusionment felt by many consumers and business owners towards the major banks caused by their role in the global financial crash, and also because of issues such as the PPI (Payment Protection Insurance) mis-selling scandal.
Mr Curry, who set up an invoice office for Royal Bank of Scotland 20 years ago, said that unpopularity continues to linger.
He does not deny that Aldermore has benefited from that sentiment, adding that it has also gained while mainstream banks face criticism for not lending enough to SMEs.
However, he emphasised the need for the industry as a whole "to get back to a position where the general public trusts the bank again".
Asked whether consumers and SMEs have enough choice when it comes to banking, he said pointed to the emergence of Aldermore, Metro Bank and, more "cynically", the relaunch of TSB and Williams and Glyn by Lloyds and RBS respectively, and added: "I think there will be more.
"And I don't think that is a bad thing.
"And I think that maybe it is what will help restore some of the confidence [that has been lost], if people have more choice.
"There is a certain amount of apathy - it is difficult to move your bank account isn't it?"
On the wider performance of Aldermore, Mr Curry highlighted its progress by noting that the bank had booked profits of £22m last year and increased its lending to SMEs to £1.8bn, up 64% on its previous year. He said "the bank is going places".
Mr Curry added: "I don't think you will see an Aldermore bank on every high street corner, because we are keen to avoid the branch network set-up.
"We are very keen here in Scotland to give SMEs the access they need to working capital."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article