United Trust Bank hires Jon Phillips as credit head for asset finance

Phillips was most recently head of credit at Renaissance Asset Finance for around a year, before that he worked at Hampshire Trust Bank for around four years, most recently as credit and risk director.

He has also worked as a risk and portfolio manager for Amicus Asset Finance for around two years and prior to that was head of Siemens Financial Services for around four years.

In his role, Phillips will focus on improving service levels and ensure brokers receive a “consistently good experience” in every transaction.

He will also define UTB’s differentiated credit appetite.

UTB developing refinancing

Nathan Mollett, head of asset finance at UTB, said: “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.”

He said that Phillips experience of running busy credit operations would help develop a top quality and consistent service so that brokers know exactly what to expect from us – all day, every day”.

Mollett said that Phillips would leverage his “considerable knowledge to coach the credit and sales teams on refinance”, which is an area it wants to develop and is of growing importance to SMEs.

He continued: “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.”

Phillips 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.”