As Chief Risk Officer, Jerome Le Luel leads a global team of risk professionals that are expert at small business lending. Their mission is to ensure that Funding Circle deploys world-class techniques and controls to select creditworthy borrowers and protect investors’ returns. Jerome Le Luel brings 20 years of experience in risk management. In his previous role at Barclays, Jerome was in charge of stress testing, risk reporting and quantitative analytics for the entire bank. Previously, he was Global Chief Risk Officer for Barclaycard, the cards and payment business of Barclays, managing risk for a £40 billion lending portfolio across Europe, Africa and the US. Under his leadership at Barclaycard, the business doubled in size and tripled in profits despite the economic recession. Prior to that, Jerome spent 12 years with credit cards specialist Capital One, joining this innovative venture at start up stage and supporting risk management through successful growth.
Keynote
Small businesses are driving the economy with 50-60 per cent of economic value coming from SMEs.
Following Brexit, banks have been reducing loans to SMEs and the result is that companies are struggling to grow, but alternative funding sources are helping.
Jerome said that companies are put off if they must do homework or complete complex applications when applying for loans. "This is why Funding Circle retrieves the publicly available data, gets a 360-degree view of the borrower and can give an answer to the application in 24 hours."