Santander Corporate & Commercial is strengthening its support for local businesses and extending its presence in Oxfordshire and Thames Valley with the opening of a new Corporate Business Centre in Oxford. The move is part of Santander’s strategic plan to grow its presence across the UK and demonstrates Santander’s commitment to the region’s small and medium sized businesses following steady growth to establish a local presence over the past three years.
A team of four corporate and commercial relationship bankers will be based at the new Oxford Business Centre, providing a bespoke relationship banking service to corporate and commercial customers with a turnover above £250,000. Customers will be offered a full range of banking services, including asset finance, trade finance, invoice discounting, treasury and merchant acquiring. The team is led by Cheryl Adams, Regional Director for Thames Valley and is made up of three relationship directors: Justin Hayward, Kevin Farrell and Dorothea Dunn, whilst Cheryl is also currently recruiting for an additional relationship banker in the region. The team are all local to the area and together have more than 70 years of combined banking experience. Customers will also have access to specialist product partners including experts in Real Estate, Education and Healthcare and Asset Based Finance. Cheryl is focussed on growing the business in the local area and increasing lending to businesses. In the year to the end March 2013, Santander grew lending to small businesses in the region by 15%, providing £76 million of new funding to smaller firms in the Thames Valley area.
Cheryl Adams says, “We are delighted to be able to provide extra dedicated support to local businesses in Oxfordshire and this new centre means we are ideally placed to support the region’s high proportion of successful and growing small and medium sized businesses. “We are focussed on growing our business lending and supporting the companies which make up the backbone of the local economy. We already have some great business customers in the area, and are thrilled that we will now be able to increase the time we spend with both existing and new customers.”
For further information on the range of services available from Santander Corporate and Commercial Banking, business owners or finance directors can visit the Corporate Business Centre at Santander Corporate & Commercial, 1st Floor, 121 St Aldates, Oxford, OX1 1HB; call Cheryl Adams on 07808 397564; www.santandercb.co.uk
