Richard Kerton

Esme Loans

CEO

CEO and co-founder of Esme Loans, the digital lending platform that allows small and medium sized businesses to simply and quickly obtain unsecured loans between a value of 10-150k. Richard is an innovative Senior Banker with deep knowledge and experience across the breadth of Retail, Commercial and Institutional Banking and senior representation in the financial services industry. Prior to founding and launching Esme Loans, Richard headed up the RBS Structured Finance business focused on providing structured lending solutions to the Global Financial Services and Funds industries, including wholesale funding to the alternative lending market.

Event Sessions Featuring Richard Kerton


Roundtable (Breakout)

Alternative Credit Roundtable

AltFi London Summit 2019 - Monday 18 March 2019


Panel

Alternative lending after Brexit

AltFi London Summit 2019 - Monday 18 March 2019

Demand from both investors and borrowers for dis-intermediated platform lending is at an all time in the UK and Europe but with the UK's departure from the EU, as well as a more mature stage of the economic cycle evident, how will the next phase of growth occur?

  • Challenger banks might have the slick operational features that customers like, but they don't have the trust or origination that big banks can access. Zuck believes that while the cost of acquisition can be low for fintechs compared to incumbents, it's scalability that will prove the hardest to overcome for smaller players while they reach for profitability. Customer segmentation is going to prove key: as use cases and models appear of what customers need or require from their banks, platforms need to pay attention to how their relationship with their customers will progress.
  • If you look at where banks will go in the future, as you strip away core services, all that will be left is customer trust. Bringing in the ability to "farm out" other services like lending to partnerships is going to become the way forward, says Taussig. People don't use banks like they use Instagram, but they'll still feel the value in being able to access all their banking needs in one place.
  • There are areas where it is natural for banks to partner with fintechs for rapid reinvention, says Kerton. Esme is looking at product innovation just as much as tech innovation, but it's important to get the systems in place and then build the tech around it. Alba-Ochoa says that OakNorth, on the other hand, adapts to all its clients. From a lending point of view, OakNorth creates a new product for every new client it gets. Every second, something new is being tested.



Articles Featuring Richard Kerton