United Trust Bank appoints Jon Phillips as Head of Credit - Asset Finance

United Trust Bank (UTB) has appointed experienced leasing finance professional Jon Phillips to the new role of Head of Credit – Asset Finance.

Jon’s career in business finance and leasing spans more than 30 years and he has held senior roles at several funders including Credit & Risk Director at Hampshire Trust Bank and Head of Region North Credit at Siemens Financial Services.

He joins UTB from Renaissance Asset Finance (part of Arbuthnot Latham Bank) where he was Head of Credit and managed the underwriting and collections teams for the flow, mid-ticket and block discounting proposals for asset finance.

United Trust Bank’s Asset Finance business has delivered significant growth in the last two years including a 142% increase in new business completed in 2021. The Bank has continued to grow the Asset Finance Credit team with the appointments of underwriter Essie Quinnell and senior underwriter Rob Irving earlier this year.

UTB sets itself high standards of broker service and, in his new role, Jon’s key focus will be to improve service levels in credit and ensure brokers receive a consistently good experience with every transaction. Jon will also be tasked with helping to define and communicate UTB’s differentiated credit appetite as a specialist rather than generalist funder. UTB is committed to maintaining its ‘broker-only’ model and encouragement of direct broker/underwriter communication, which it believes is unique amongst asset finance lenders.

Upon joining UTB, Jon Philips commented: “I am very excited to be joining UTB at this time. It is a dynamic and ambitious business, and I am very much looking forward to being part of and helping its future success.”

Nathan Mollett, Head of Asset Finance – United Trust Bank, commented: “Despite the economic uncertainty, we have remained busy this year with proposals and completions. So much so that despite having more underwriters than ever before, at times our service has been stretched and standards have fallen below where we want them to be. Jon’s experience of running busy Credit operations will help us to develop a top quality and consistent service so that brokers know exactly what to expect from us – all day, every day. Jon will also use his considerable knowledge to coach the Credit and Sales teams on refinance, an area of business we want to develop and one which we believe will be important to SMEs as they navigate any challenges ahead and will give our broker partners more opportunities to write business.

“Now more than ever it is important that we have an experienced Head of Credit on the team who has worked through the ups and downs of economic cycles. We need to achieve the right balance of giving brokers and their SME customers the support they need, whilst maintaining the discipline of lending wisely.”