Lendable hires City banker to raise capital

A FORMER Royal Bank of Scotland investment banker has taken up an executive role at peer-to-peer finance firm Lendable.

Rory McHugh has joined the company as chief capital officer, a role that typically focuses exclusively on capital gathering and deployment, freeing up the chief financial officer for other tasks.

“Rory will be spearheading our efforts to raise capital,” a company spokesperson said.

Read more: Lendable partners with money app Pariti

Before joining Lendable, McHugh spent five months as a managing director for alternative asset manager Ares Management, and before that, he spent almost seven years at RBS, most recently as the UK bank’s head of alternative finance, specialist lenders and fintech solutions, according to his LinkedIn profile.

This is not the first time that Lendable has attracted ex-investment bankers. The company’s co-founder Jakob Schwarz spent two years working as an analyst in US investment banking giant Goldman Sachs’ government bond trading business.

Lendable, which has been running since 2014, uses automated underwriting technology to offer instant decisions on consumer loans.

It received a £300m investment from Castle Trust Capital at the end of 2017 to grow its origination capabilities. The company hit a £100m cumulative lending milestone in November.