Lending Awards winners revealed for 2020

As the only awards programme covering the mortgage, commercial and alternative lending industries, the Lending Awards recognised outstanding achievement across all three verticals, in a year that all lenders have been working under exceptional pressure.

The awards followed a new-look Lending Summit, held over two days as an interactive digital broadcast, which brought together presenters from lenders including Lloyds Banking Group, Skipton Building Society, HSBC, Hitachi Capital, Cambridge Building Society, Beverly Building Society, Roma Finance, Haydock Finance and others.

The independent judging panel for the awards comprised directors and executives working in roles such as head of credit risk, chief credit officer, director of SME banking and head of venture debt across lenders including HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group, Oakbrook Finance, Virgin Money and Paragon Bank.

The awards ceremony was hosted by Justin Moorhouse, famed for his appearances on 8 Out of 10 Cats and other comedy shows across BBC 2 and Channel 4. It began with a heartfelt tribute to Gavin Wraith-Carter, the former managing director of Hitachi Capital Business Finance who sadly passed away in September. This was delivered by Andrew Slatford, group director of credit risk at Hitachi, who gave testimony to Gavin’s contribution to his industry, his qualities as a business leader and his intelligence, integrity and inspiration as a colleague.

Hitachi Capital Business Finance was, in fact, the big winner of the night, taking away two awards: Best Support for SMEs and Customer Service Excellence – Alternative Lending.

To view the full list of winners, visit the Lending Awards website.

Viewers watched the ceremony via Brella, the viewing and networking tool for all events during the Credit Festival, sponsored by Experian. As the Credit Festival reaches it’s latter stages, events coming up include the Car Finance Conference and Awards tomorrow (Thursday 19 November), and the Collections & Vulnerability Summit, also sponsored by Experian, next week.

Sponsors of the Lending Awards this year included the headline partner, Lantern, as well as Experian, Ardent Credit Services and Alphera Financial Services.