Masthaven Bank has promoted Roz Cawood to the role of head of sales for short-term lending.

Cawood was previously senior business development manager at the lender.

In the new role, she will be responsible for strengthening relationships with  Masthaven’s network of brokers and growing its reach, as well as educating the market about bridging finance.

Prior to joining Masthaven five years ago, Cawood worked at Lendinvest, Precise and Legal & General in business development roles.

The news follows Masthaven’s latest Broker Beat survey which found that bridging finance was in top three biggest growth areas for advisers in 2019, with 13 per cent of respondents upbeat about its prospects. 

Almost a quarter of brokers reported that remortgage activity is the area of their business that saw the strongest growth 2019 followed by later life lending for 18 per cent of advisers.

Masthaven director of intermediaries Rob Barnard says: “Bridging finance has become more mainstream in recent years and brokers are writing more bridging business. 

“But as lenders, we still have an education job on our hands to help the industry understand where bridging fits. 

“This means talking to the broker community to help them meet the needs of bridging customers.

“Roz has been helping us on this mission and her recent promotion reflects the work she has put in to help grow the bridging market, building on our partnerships with our brokers to help more customers benefit from bridging.”