LHV Bank has grown its loan book to around £140m, a doubling in size from £69m at the end of 2023.
LHV Bank secured its banking licence from the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) in May 2023, and entered the specialist buy-to-let (BTL) sector in January this year.
The lender offers personal savings accounts and lending to SMEs, focusing on specialist BTL, commercial real estate investment and owner-occupier mortgages.
Its loan sizes range from £500,000 to £10m and over.
It is a subsidiary of LHV Group, which is a financial institution headquartered in Estonia. The parent company services around 400,000 clients and manages a portfolio exceeding £10bn in financial assets.
LHV Bank is capitalised through its parent company and over 200 fintech companies use the firm to service over 10 million end-to-end customers.
Erki Kilu, CEO at LHV Bank, said: “We launched into the UK market last year with a cutting-edge lending platform, designed to support our strategy to offer bespoke products to SMEs, while simultaneously providing excellent customer service. Our significant loan book growth is testament to the excellence of our people, platform and processes.
“Over recent months, we have expanded our London team of lending professionals in order to further develop broker relationships, allow rapid decision-making and handle the complex lending requirements of our clients. Our next target is £200m in lending, and with our current run rate, we look set to achieve this by the end of the year.”
Anna is currently the deputy editor for Mortgage Solutions and editor for Specialist Lending Solutions. She has worked as a journalist since 2019, having secured her Gold Standard NCTJ diploma from News Associates in a fast-track six-month course.
She started her career as a report at specialist publication The Insurance Insider covering a wide range of areas before joining Mortgage Solutions and Specialist Lending Solutions in 2021.
In her role, she helps put together and structure the news agenda for the day and writes up press releases, reports, interviews, analyses and exclusives across both titles. She also commissions blogs for Specialist Lending Solutions and hosts online masterclasses and in-person events across the business.
She has been shortlisted for three journalism awards, which include BIBA Journalist and Media Awards Scoop of Year Award in 2020, Headline Money Mortgage Journalist of the Year Award (B2B) in 2022 and 2023.
Prior to being a journalist, Anna worked in ecommerce across Snow + Rock, Cycle Surgery and Runners Need websites, and before that worked at specialist financial PR firm Rostrum.
In her spare time, Anna enjoys reading, seeing live music, and cooking for friends and family. When she gets a chance, she also enjoys hiking, skiing and indoor rock climbing.
