Commercial Finance
Atom Bank exceeds £1bn in commercial mortgage completions
App-based lender Atom Bank has passed the £1bn milestone for commercial mortgage completions, eight years after its launch.
This comes after Atom Bank announced its first-ever year of profitability with a before tax figure of £6.7m for the year ending March 2024, following a loss of £10.1m the year before.
The lender also saw a 20% annual rise in gross mortgage lending to £1.6bn. Within this, it ended the year with commercial balances of more than £600m, which was an annual rise of 19%.
Atom Bank was one of the main lenders involved in the Recovery Loan Scheme (RLS), which was launched after the pandemic. It has provided more than £235m through the scheme and also issued loans through the previous Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS) initiative.
The bank said it was yet to make a claim on the taxpayer-backed guarantee, which demonstrated its prudent lending.
Atom Bank said it made several tweaks to its commercial offering to keep it competitive, including rate cuts and an increase to the maximum loan to value (LTV) available following broker feedback.
Five ways we’ve improved our Premier service
Sponsored by Halifax Intermediaries
It will now provide maximum loans of £5m up to 75% LTV.
‘Fiercely passionate about helping SMEs’
Tom Renwick (pictured), head of business lending at Atom Bank, said: “Hitting the £1bn milestone serves as a moment for reflection and represents an opportune moment to look back on how far we’ve come as a business. We know what it’s like to start a business, we’ve been there and done it, so we are fiercely passionate about helping SMEs wherever they are on their journey.
“In the eight years since Atom Bank launched, we have sought to do the right thing by brokers and their clients by taking on board their feedback, which has been invaluable in improving and building our presence in the market. Over the last 12 months in particular, we have had a laser focus on automating and digitising the process where possible, delivering a faster and smoother experience, and we have seen huge improvements [that] we know have been valued.”
He added: “We will celebrate this milestone and want to thank our intermediary partners for their support over the years. Looking ahead, we are determined to keep innovating and identifying ways in which we can deliver even greater levels of support to the nation’s SMEs, so watch this space.”