United Trust Bank loan book exceeds £3bn as business grows across divisions

United Trust Bank’s loan book has exceeded £3 billion for the first time, following continued growth across its lending divisions in 2023 and despite the volatile and challenging economic and market conditions.

The specialist lender has continued to invest in people and technology throughout the year leading to record breaking results in its development, structured, bridging, mortgage and asset finance businesses.

Earlier this year, the Bank announced that its development finance committed loan book had exceeded £1bn for the first time and, more recently, UTB mortgages for intermediaries, the Bank’s broker-focused specialist mortgage business, announced that its active mortgage loan book for first and second charge residential and buy-to-let mortgages had also exceeded £1bn.

UTB’s structured property finance and bridging finance divisions have also delivered record-breaking performances, completing over £250m and £300m in new loans respectively so far this year.

United Trust Bank has also experienced rapid growth in their asset finance division reporting a 54% growth rate in 2022 and 188% growth over the past three years as reported in the AFUK50 Report 2023, showing consistent growth in percentage terms over a three-year period. United Trust Bank also saw the strongest advance in the 2023 AFUK50 ranking moving up five places.

Investing in technology to support their ambitious growth plans, United Trust Bank moved their asset finance operations to the Alfa Systems software platform via the Alfa Start methodology in 2022. 

As a successful challenger bank, United Trust Bank has been able to effectively gain scale while managing capital requirements (with challenges from forthcoming changes to capital adequacy rules affecting lending to SMEs) and position themselves to thrive in a more challenging environment of higher interest rate levels and rising defaults.

Mark Stokes (pictured), Executive Director and Chief Commercial Officer, United Trust Bank commented: “I am delighted that despite the challenges the market has presented us this year, our outstanding staff and valued customer and broker partners have helped UTB to deliver a superb performance.

“Increasing our loan book to in excess of £3bn for the first time is a significant and exciting milestone highlighting the success of our growth strategy and giving us great confidence in our plans to continue developing our business and growing our share of the specialist finance market.

“We have proven that although there have been some jitters in the banking sector over the last nine months, UTB is a robust, trusted and reliable through the cycle lender with a bright and exciting future. We remain committed to supporting our customers and brokers in the long term whatever economic challenges lie ahead.”