Bridging lender Hope Capital has appointed a business development manager (BDM) who will focus on the Midlands.

Sanjay Patel, who has worked in the financial services market for more than 20 years, started his career in a local building society, before moving into mortgages and bridging.

This announcement comes just four months after Hope Capital expanded into Scotland with the appointment of the lender’s Scottish BDM Jim Wylie.

The bridging lender now has four business development managers across the UK and is currently looking at increasing the team further, with a particular focus on London and the South East.

Patel said: “I look forward to utilising my experience and network of contacts to build valuable working relationships and making a real difference to company and the broker community. I will also strive to help Hope Capital to continue to raise its profile while also increasing its market presence.”

Jonathan Sealey, chief executive officer of Hope Capital, added: “Sanjay’s understanding of the importance of service when it comes to short term lending will help us to ensure our service standards to brokers and borrowers remain exceptionally high.

“We are continuing to expand throughout the UK and I am confident that Sanjay’s recent appointment will prove to be vital to the continued development of Hope Capital. Due to a range of criteria changes including the increase to our maximum loan size, 2015 was a very successful year for us. We will continue to work towards increasing awareness for the need for bridging.

“We will be improving our proposition making it even more favourable to bridging borrowers and brokers in 2016 continuing to help even more people with the short term finance they require.”