Commercial finance provider and NACFB
patron United Trust Bank has announced growth intentions in Asset
Finance, spearheaded by the recruitment of Former IBJ Leasing sales
director Martin Nixon.

While he joined UTB last July as senior
manager for asset finance, he has spent the last eight months
building a broker base for the lender, and now plans to lead an
introducer-driven expansion drive for the department.

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Nixon, who left IBJ after owner the
Industrial Bank of Japan closed the book to new business in 2010,
brings specialist experience in wheeled and tracked assets to UTB,
not to mention an extensive list of broker contacts.

UTB had a small agricultural asset
finance business, run as a joint venture with a broker, but will
now look to branch out and finance a range of wheeled and tracked
assets in the £10,000 – £500,000 ticket bracket, through hire
purchase and finance lease products.

Nixon says brokers will be an integral
part of asset finance at UTB. “Brokers are very important. The
bedrock here is the relationship I’ve built up with brokers, some
going back 30 years.”

UTB considers the greatest asset of the
new team to be its asset experience: joining Nixon from IBJ are
Paul Taylor as business development manager and Lee Chandler as
loans administrator.

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In terms of future recruitment, Nixon
comments: “We will be looking at taking on one or two more people
this year. We have our targets and we’re looking to build things
consistently.”

While UTB is reticent to state its annual
lend intentions at this early stage of the venture, citing a “slow
and structured” approach to growth, Nixon emphasises that given the
shared credit and risk resources with UTB’s other commercial
banking functions, the work of his initial team will be “highly
scaleable”.

He adds that UTB’s unique selling point
to brokers in contrast to IBJ is the “back-up and support” offered
in funding terms to the new division, as well as the security that
comes from working with a regulated bank with “all the checks and
balances that that brings.”

Discussing the division’s route to
market, he explains that UTB will be also be exploring the vendor
channel through brokers, looking to be part of sales-aid funding
panels.

Underwriting for asset finance applications
will be largely manual at UTB, which Nixon says involves a high
degree of personal interaction – another draw for brokers. “There
is no automated writing system, and we have a very flexible
approach to deals. Many brokers prefer this sort of model.”