Plend hires head of operations
Plend has hired Sutherland Boyd (pictured) as head of operations.
She started working at the peer-to-peer consumer lending platform earlier this week, according to business networking site LinkedIn.
She joins the firm from Cifas, a cross-sector fraud sharing organisation, where she worked for three years, latterly as head of operations.
Plend is continuing to hire and has two openings currently listed on its website, one for founder associate and the other for a full stack developer.
Read more: Plend partners with tech firm on debt resolution solution
Last year, Plend bolstered its team with an array of new hires including Crowdcube co-founder Luke Lang as executive chair, RateSetter’s former risk officer Kevin Allen, Sarah Davies as head of compliance and Ash Woolf as head of data analytics.
The firm became regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority in April 2022, after a two-year approval process. Since launching in beta mode in mid-May to August, the platform delivered more than £500,000 in loans. It also processed more than £7.2m in loan requests.
The platform opened to the public at the beginning of July.
Plend is aiming to have lent out £14m by the end of the year, according to Rob Pasco, chief executive and co-founder.
“Its been amazing, but also mad,” Pasco told Peer2Peer Finance News over the summer. “The hardest thing for us has been dealing with so many applications. A lot of people are looking to get low-cost credit at the moment.”
In July, the platform also partnered with ethical lender Lendology to improve financial inclusion for homeowners across the South West of England.