ANDY Geagen has been appointed regional sales manager for the East of England for the invoice finance division of British challenger bank Aldermore.

Based in Aldermore’s Peterborough office and reporting to Midlands regional managing director, Tony Smedley, Andy is responsible for helping businesses strengthen their cashflow through the use of invoice finance. Companies use invoice finance to unlock cash tied up in unpaid invoices, which releases valuable working capital.

Andy Geagen joins Aldermore from NatWest, where he was a senior manager working from the bank’s Peterborough commercial office to provide owner-managed businesses with invoice finance, trade finance and asset finance funding solutions alongside more traditional types of funding.

Andy said: “This is an exciting time to be joining Aldermore, which is developing a strong reputation as a new generation bank that is truly committed to supporting businesses throughout the country. It’s great to be part of such a dynamic team and I’m looking forward to continuing to work with businesses across the East of England.”

Tony Smedley added: “Andy has a detailed knowledge of business finance and considerable experience of working with the business community. I have no doubt he will be welcomed by business owners throughout the region.”

Aldermore has lent more than �1bn to small and medium-sized business since opening its doors for business in the summer of 2009. Aldermore has approximately 12,000 SME customers and has increased its business client base by 52 per cent during the past year, at a time when many other banks have been scaling back their SME lending activities.