Metro Bank, the entrepreneur’s bank, has today committed £30million of funding over the next 18 months to support the professional services sector. It will work in collaboration with LDF, the UK’s largest independent provider of SME finance solutions, to support the venture.
The announcement follows the successful launch of the bank’s tailored lending offering, which aims to provide SMEs with short term funding, including Professional Indemnity Insurance (PII) funding, tax finance, IT finance, and asset finance.
Nathan Mollett, Head of Asset Finance at Metro Bank, said: “The professional services is an integral sector in the UK economy and we’re delighted to be able to support it with an additional dedicated line of funding. We understand how demanding the sector can be and hope that by working closely with LDF we can enable more businesses to prosper.”
Metro Bank’s latest development follows strong Q2 results for the leading challenger bank, which saw a 110% year-on-year increase in lending, with loans to commercial customers representing 35% of total lending. The bank also reported a 74% year-on-year growth in deposits to £6.6bn, 52% of which was from business customers.
LDF will utilise this partnership as an opportunity to further strengthen their already strong presence within the legal and accounting sector, whilst improving their offering of financial solutions to the top 20% of UK firms within these sectors.