South: NatWest appoints new head of business development

NatWest has appointed Haydn Thomas as head of business development – business banking, for the whole of the UK.

He has worked for NatWest for over 21 years, and was previously the bank’s regional managing director – business banking for the South West of England and Wales.

As well as overseeing the bank’s business-development strategy for business banking, he will lead a team of 73 new business-growth enablers from across the country who will be tasked with supporting over 50,000 current and new start-up and small businesses before the end of 2016 through personal meetings, bespoke events and digital repositories (in 2017 the target will be 100,000).

He will also liaise closely with NatWest’s commercial-finance brokers across the UK, and will head up business banking’s partnerships and proposition teams, which will include working with corporate partners such as KPMG and payment-processing company World Pay.

He commented: “SMEs are vital to the success of our economy and our goal is to be more than a provider of financial services to businesses wherever we operate. As well as helping them to survive and grow by delivering advice, we will be providing further support and key contacts through a series of local events.”