Allica Bank appoints new relationship manager to bolster asset financing offering
Matt Ellery has joined Allica Bank as a relationship manager to boost its fast-growing asset finance division in the South East and Midlands.
He will sit on the bank’s direct-to-SME team, giving personal and tailored support to established small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs). The bank says this segment of the market – businesses with around 10-100 employees – are underserved by the big banks, most of which don’t give their SME customers access to a relationship manager with real SME lending expertise.
Matt has a wealth of experience within the finance and banking sector. After starting out in accountancy, he made the switch to asset finance five years ago, during which time he has held account management positions with major banking and finance institutions, including BNP Paribas and most recently Propel Finance.
He says that Allica Bank’s mission to ‘bring back the local relationship manager’, is exactly what SMEs need at a challenging time like this, and chimes well with his own beliefs: “tailored and personalised financial support for businesses is essential in ensuring they get the right funding at the right time. Every business owner has unique challenges, but what banks offer rarely reflects this.
“At Allica, we have built our asset finance proposition to consider the individuality of every business. With tailored support and quick decision-making, I am looking forward to helping businesses acquire the assets they need to grow. In particular, following the government’s launch of the super deduction tax break, which makes now one of the most cost-effective times for businesses to do so.”
Allica has seen strong growth in lending in the last year and plans to offer £500m in committed SME loan offers in 2021. In addition to increasing its maximum asset finance loan from £250,000 to £500,000, it has also recently increased its maximum commercial mortgage from £3m to £5m.
