United Trust Bank Bridging promotes Helen Wakeford to Head of Unregulated Underwriting Role

21 August 2023

United Trust Bank (UTB) has promoted Helen Wakeford to the senior role of Head of Unregulated Underwriting – Bridging Finance, with immediate effect.

The senior management appointment continues the restructuring of the Bank’s Bridging underwriting function into two dedicated teams, one managing regulated bridging applications and one managing unregulated bridging applications.

Earlier this year, Becky Kidby was appointed to lead the underwriting team for regulated bridging applications and Helen has now taken on the same role for unregulated bridging.

Helen has worked in finance for nearly 20 years fulfilling various roles in credit, portfolio and relationship management with lenders including Metro Bank, RBS and HSBC. She joined United Trust Bank in August 2019 as a Credit Officer and quickly applied her skills and experience to the Specialist Mortgage and Bridging businesses.

In her new role as part of the Bridging division’s senior management, Helen will be responsible for managing underwriting in the Unregulated Bridging team and ensuring brokers receive a quick and efficient service. She will be working closely with Becky Kidby, Anita Kirkbright Bridging’s Head of Operations, Paula Purdy Bridging’s recently appointed Head of Sales, and Director of Bridging Sundeep Patel, in developing and delivering the strategy for the Bank’s further growth in both regulated and unregulated sectors.

Upon announcing Helen Wakeford’s promotion, Sundeep Patel, Director of Bridging – United Trust Bank, said: “Since joining the Bank, Helen has proven to be a talented member of the Credit team and her knowledge and experience made her the perfect choice for this new role.

“Her appointment continues the ongoing restructuring of the Bank’s Bridging operations to ensure brokers receive the same high levels of service for regulated and unregulated bridging loan applications. We recognise that regulated and unregulated bridging require distinctly different skill sets and processes for underwriting and case management to meet brokers’ requirements for speed and efficiency. This new structure, together with our reputation for honouring our commitments and delivering what we promise, will push UTB to the top of many brokers’ consideration lists for a wide variety of bridging proposals.

“Helen and Becky Kidby will work together to ensure UTB remains dominant in the regulated bridging sector whilst substantially developing our unregulated presence. We will show brokers that this new approach from UTB will deliver quick decisions and completions for every type of bridging loan they introduce to us.”

Helen Wakeford, Head of Unregulated Underwriting – Bridging Finance, said: “I am delighted to be joining UTB’s Bridging Finance team at this exciting time and I look forward to working with Sundeep, Becky, Anita and Paula as we grow UTB’s share of the unregulated and regulated bridging market.”