Different Money has appointed Lee Gray as head of risk.

The Cheshire-based lender styles itself as as a short-term alternative to a high street bank or payday lender.

Gray (pictured) has over a decade’s experience in working within the financial and retail sectors, predominantly within a credit risk role and joins from the Shop Direct Group, which encompassing brands such as Littlewoods and Very.co.uk.

At Shop Direct Gray lead a team of business analysts continually looking at ways to improve the group’s business decisions through scorecards, segmentation and predictive models. Prior to this he worked at the UK’s third biggest credit reference agency, CallCredit Information Group, where he worked with the consultancy team to build credit scorecards and validations using customer data.

In his new role at Different Money, Gray will be responsible for the development, implementation and monitoring of credit risk strategies to enable the business to grow.

Louise Sanders, managing director at Different Money, said: “Lee has the necessary background and experience to help us move our business away from the stigma attached with the short-term loan market and into the more mainstream near-prime lending market. His extensive scorecard modelling experience will enable us to improve our credit decisions and, most importantly, our customer outcomes.

“He has already added value to the business, making suggestions as to how we can improve our data usage and drive efficiencies within credit risk.”

Gray added: “I’d already heard of Different Money and so was keen to help develop its future and challenge myself in a new sector. Being genuinely different to its competition, it has a significant competitive advantage within the industry and a potential future success that I am keen to share in.”