Member Article

MarketInvoice snags Santander chief to oversee AI and machine learning development

Peer-to-peer (P2P) lender MarketInvoice has announced it has poached a high-flying corporate banking executive to head up its risk division as it looks to continue the expansion of its technological capabilities.

The invoice financing marketplace has appointed Shaun Alexander as its new Head of Risk from Santander, where he will help develop the firm’s risk management and credit scoring facilities.

Bringing with him over 30 years’ experience in the banking sector across roles at Santander, Barclays and Oliver Wyman, Alexander has overseen credit risk roles and lending strategies for multi-billion pound portfolios ranging from £2.5bn to £90bn.

Ilya Kondrashov, MarketInvoice Chief Operating Officer and Co-Founder, welcomed Alexander to the fold, and said his appointment was part of a sustained strategy by the FinTech firm to strengthen its senior management team.

He said: “We have been steadily strengthening our management team over the past 12 months and Shaun’s addition enhances our team further. He brings over 30 years of experience from the conventional lending institutions. Shaun understands the business finance needs of companies of all sizes.”

The appointment comes as MarketInvoice, which helps businesses unlock financing from their unpaid invoices, begins to ramp up its lending this year, having targeted £2bn in business lending facilitated on its platform by the end of this year.

However, as it ramps up its lending the firm is having to look to more advanced technology and ways to manage risk and credit scoring, including artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning systems, which Kondrashov believes is key to the future success of the business.

He added: “As we grow, in handling the scale and volume of interest in the business, it is imperative that we have the resources to deliver on our customer promise whilst delivering the highest quality risk tools. As such, adopting the latest technology is key to driving success.”

Following his appointment, Shaun Alexander, Head of Risk at MarketInvoice commented: “MarketInvoice is not only challenging but driving the change in fintech to deliver a best-in-class risk function in business finance. I will look to adopt the latest technology in evolving our risk models and credit management to achieve MarketInvoice’s ambitions.”