He made the revelation at the Association of Bridging Professionals’ annual general meeting yesterday.
The event, held at St Martin’s Lane Hotel in London, attracted the industry’s key bridging professionals, and included a presentation from John, who talked about the short term lender’s extraordinary growth story.
John told the audience that it was key for a business to keep moving, and it was at this point that he revealed that Amicus Finance wants to become a bank.
“…You will see at the end of this month that we are going through, starting the authorisation process, to become a bank,” John said.
“Because for me, that’s the next stage of our strategic journey.
“That’s the next bit of the environment we have to create, and the next bit of the environment that will enable us to keep moving so that we are standing here in three more years and talking about half a billion or even a billion pound business rather than a quarter billion.”
This news comes shortly after bridging lender Masthaven Finance revealed it is also set to become a bank as of next year.
Amicus said it will also be launching Amicus Commercial Finance, to serve small businesses and professional services communities, in January 2016.
The new venture will be headed up by John Wilde and David Hogg.
They built SME Invoice Finance Limited from a start-up in 2000 into a national firm which had annual revenues of £12m at the time of its sale to Metro Bank PLC in 2013.
Amicus Commercial Finance will provide a revolving working capital facility powered by a proprietary funding platform, and will focus on relationship-based, intelligent cash flow to owner-managed businesses with annual sales between £0.5m and £5m.
John Jenkins commented: “The launch of Amicus Commercial Finance underlines our strategy of broadening our proposition into other specialist lending markets which are poorly served by mainstream lenders.
“We are delighted that John and David will be leading this business.
“As two of the most experienced and successful leaders in this sector they have the skills, contacts and vision to build a business that will set a new benchmark in this sector.”
David Hogg added: “There is a compelling opportunity to create a market-leading brand in small business finance.
“We’re excited to have the opportunity with Amicus to build this business and we look forward to the challenge ahead.”
John Wilde, concluded: “In Amicus we have found the ideal partner with whom we can build a new proposition designed specifically around small businesses’ cash flow financing requirements.
“We believe that the market will welcome a fresh approach from a commercial finance provider that is able to combine the strengths of a relationship-driven service with technology-based processing power.”
Yesterday, B&C exclusively revealed that Amicus had recruited two directors from bridging heavyweight Fincorp.
Matthew Anderson and Nigel Alexander will become regional directors with the company in the New Year.
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