Together has appointed banking expert Andrew Taylor as group lending director to help grow its book.

Taylor, who has more than 35 years’ experience in financial services, will chair the group’s credit committee and take responsibility for residential and commercial underwriting, securities, valuations and development funding.

He will also lead automation initiatives across the business.

Taylor began his career at Barclays in 1990 before moving to National Australia Bank and later Royal Bank of Scotland.

At RBS he held a number of senior corporate banking and credit roles, including head of financial institutions at RBS International and head of credit for business banking.

He later became head of risk, credit deployment and decisioning, with responsibility for non-automated underwriting decisions across retail banking and high-net-worth lending within Coutts.

Taylor will report to Together group chief operating officer Dave Sutherland.

Together group lending director Andrew Taylor says: “It’s not often that you find a business with such ambitious growth plans as Together and the group’s ethos fits well with the skills I’ve built up throughout my career.

“My first few months will be deep immersion in the business, finding out what has made Together so successful and what is going to help the business to the next phase of its growth journey.”

Together group chief operating officer Dave Sutherland says: “Andrew’s experience speaks for itself; he’s held senior positions in the banking world and has vast knowledge of credit and risk, has built high-performing teams to deliver large-scale transformation, and has worked in customer-facing roles structuring and delivering complex lending solutions.

“His background will hugely benefit Together as we continue our own transformation journey.”