Sparkling successes at the NACFB Awards
29/11/2024
At last night’s NACFB Commercial Lender Awards, co-hosted by renowned broadcaster Kirsty Gallacher and Olympian and NatWest Ambassador Daley Thompson, and expertly MC’d by comedian Emmanuel Sonubi, more than seven hundred people from the commercial finance community gathered together at the Westminster Park Plaza.
The event saw twenty-one prestigious awards handed over to the very best of the intermediary-led commercial finance community, and the night’s big winners included the following:
Asset Finance Provider of the Year
Winner — Shawbrook
Highly Commended — Allica Bank
Factoring & Invoice Discounter of the Year
Winner — Bibby Financial Services
Highly Commended — Ultimate Finance
BDM Team of the Year
Winner — HTB
Highly Commended — United Trust Bank
Service Excellence Awards
Winner — NatWest
Highly Commended — Funding Circle
Business Bank of the Year
Winner — Allica Bank
Highly Commended — NatWest
Rising Star of the Year = Edward Rixon, Shawbrook
Challenger Bank of the Year = Allica Bank
Innovation of the Year = Shawbrook
Leadership Award winner = Jayne Follows, Cambridge & Counties Bank
Commercial Finance Lender of the Year = Allica Bank
The full list of award winners can be found on the NACFB website here.
Guests generously contributed a significant amount — still being tallied — in support of the NACFB's charity of the year, Air Ambulances UK.
Outgoing MD Norman Chambers received a standing ovation after eleven years of service and revealed he will be acting as non-executive director for the Association starting from January.
NACFB CEO Jim Higginbotham said, “I’d like to extend a heartfelt thank you to everyone who made this year's NACFB Commercial Lender Awards such a success – from our brilliant hosts to the winners, highly commended, and all those shortlisted, as well as our fantastic sponsors, including headline sponsor Red Flag Alert.”
All in all this was a typically lavish and imaginative awards dinner created and hosted with wit and flair, bringing together the best of the broad world of commercial finance. And with Jim Higginbotham now at the helm, we can see the Association is in safe hands after a year of some reinvention in 2024.
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