Ex-Growth Street risk director joins Nexa Finance
PEER-TO-PEER lending risk expert Mark Williams has joined Nexa Finance as chief commercial officer and director of credit risk.
Williams (pictured) has worked in finance for 35 years, having begun his career at HSBC where he held a variety of roles including personal finance, commercial lending, credit risk and private banking.
He moved into the world of P2P lending in 2014, joining ‘big three’ platform RateSetter as head of business credit and risk.
In 2017, he moved to P2P business lender Growth Street as risk director, where he was “instrumental” as part of the leadership team in tripling the loanbook in less than 18 months, Nexa said.
Nexa Finance launched in August, aiming to connect East Midlands-based small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) property developers and housebuilders with institutional investors. It plans to expand its offering out to retail investors within 18 to 24 months.
Read more: Alternative property lenders make waves over the summer
“As the first regionally-focused alternative finance lender to connect institutional funders to SME property developers, I’m looking forward to working as part of this innovative business,” Williams said.
“Nexa’s mission to bring a personal approach and build face-to-face, long-term relationships with its clients very much resonates with myself, and I’m excited to be working alongside Brian Cartwright, managing director. Together, I believe we can build a sustainable growing business that both meets the needs of our clients, whilst ensuring that we have the appropriate and correct risk controls in place.”
Williams will be responsible for ensuring there is minimal risk to investors where possible, Nexa said, through the use of technology, data, and traditional relationship management.
“[Williams’] impressive knowledge and experience in financial services and risk management means he is a perfect fit for us here at Nexa Finance and demonstrates our commitment to growing Nexa into an established and credible lender within the SME property market,” Cartwright said.
Nexa Finance announced earlier this month that it had selected SaaScada to provide the technology for its new platform.
SaaScada’s cloud-based platform of open APIs enables new market entrants to rapidly launch banking services, taking as little as 12 weeks to build, Nexa said at the time of the announcement. It also helps existing financial service providers reduce development and running costs.
