Lloyds Bank grows Agriculture team by 20 per cent
Lloyds Bank has announced its intention to significantly strengthen its Agriculture division.
Andrew Naylor
Following consistent growth over the past five years in demand among farmers for lending and specialist banking guidance, Lloyds Bank has announced its intention to significantly strengthen its Agriculture division.
Andrew Naylor has been appointed UK Director of Agriculture and will now be leading one of the largest agricultural banking teams in the UK, supported by Policy Director Alick Jones. The number of agricultural bank managers is also being boosted by over 20 per cent across the country to accommodate continued growth in both lending and numbers of new customers.
Mr Naylor, who has over 20 years’ experience in banking within Lloyds Bank, says it’s important that farming looks to other business sectors for inspiration in an increasingly global market; however, the industry remains unique and offers exceptional opportunities for growth.
“Whilst Agriculture accounts for just 1 per cent of the UK’s GDP, it represents more than 10 per cent of our total lending to SMEs,” explains Mr Naylor. “We all know agriculture is on the ascendancy due to growing global demand for food and energy, but at Lloyds Bank we’ve seen year-on-year growth of nearly 16 per cent in lending to the sector, almost double the average bank lending rate reported by the Bank of England.”
He says Agriculture was the first industry sector in Lloyds Bank to receive focused expertise and knowledge, with the recruitment of dedicated managers specially trained to understand the sector and the opportunities and issues faced by businesses operating within it.
“This has been so successful, the same model has now been adopted by Lloyds Bank in a number of other sectors, such as manufacturing. This strategy has helped us to deliver overall growth in lending to SMEs of 5 per cent against a 3 per cent decline for the market as a whole. We are already the UK’s biggest lender to the farming industry, but our Agriculture division is also leading the way and changing how we do things within Lloyds Bank.”
