Sandy Crombie, the former Standard Life CEO and Royal Bank of Scotland senior independent director, has joined Scottish fintech lender LendingCrowd as chairman.

Launched in late 2014, LendingCrowd has facilitated more than £45 million of loans to around 500 SMEs across the UK.

The platform, which accesses finance from a range of investors and is fully authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority, reported a record first half of the year in July, including increasing its proportion of loans to Scotland-based companies supported by its £2.75 million partnership deal with Scottish Enterprise’s investment arm.

In March 2018, LendingCrowd secured an external funding round of £2.2 million led by angel syndicate Equity Gap and including Scottish Investment Bank and a number of prominent private investors from Scotland’s entrepreneurial and finance scene.

Stuart Lunn, founder and CEO of LendingCrowd, said: “Attracting such an experienced and highly-rated individual as Sir Sandy is a validation of our approach to building a long-term, sustainable model capable of being scaled in a high-growth sector.

“We have a strong focus on financial processes, regulation and compliance and Sir Sandy will bring invaluable knowledge and expertise around these issues and in supporting our strategic aims. I

“look forward to a positive, collaborative relationship with Sir Sandy as we drive scale into our business.”

Crombie said: “LendingCrowd has made impressive strides in a relatively short space of time, supporting the growth ambitions of hundreds of businesses.

“This is an exciting time for the business and I look forward to working with Stuart and the rest of the team as the platform scales and delivers even more benefits to SMEs, which are the backbone of both the Scottish and UK economies.”