The specialist mortgage lender for self-employed borrowers has announced that Alan Fardon, a former regional manager for Bendigo and Adelaide Bank, has joined the company as national sales and distribution manager.

Mr Fardon has over 20 years’s experience within the financial services industry, including 14 years with RAMS Financial Group as the state manager for NSW/ACT and QLD, where he managed a network of 50 franchisees.

He began his new role at Rate Money’s North Sydney headquarters at the end of March, and has been tasked with increasing sales and distribution, building customer base, and growing lending, deposits and managing P&L performance.

Rate Money founder and CEO Ryan Gair welcomed Mr Fardon to the team, particularly noting his experience and his ability to build successful partnerships across multiple stakeholders to drive results. 

Mr Gair noted that the lender is aiming to settle $3 billion this calendar year and extend its branch network from 26 to 40, and the new addition would be key to helping achieve this.

“Alan is a wonderful ‘glass half full’ person, typically looking at problem solving and solutions to make things possible. People love him,” Mr Gair said.

“He has a terrific history of success by building strong partnerships across multiple stakeholders in order to drive results, as well as endless experience in all facets of management including: recruitment, training, lending, credit, business development, business planning, sales coaching, marketing and compliance,” he continued.

“He’s sure to be a real asset to our branch principals, our management team and our customers, especially given our company’s current rate of growth.”

Commenting on his new role, Mr Fardon said: “The potential of Rate Money is enormous. I look forward to helping them fulfil that potential.”

He continued: “I’m extremely passionate about people, building effective relationships and ensuring that our key staff not only enjoy what they do but are being supported in their own growth and development.”

Mr Fardon added that he was also looking forward to “supporting and assisting self-employed business owners” – both self-employed branch principals and their customers.

 “I love that we can provide the right level of support and assistance to not only help them achieve their goals but exceed them. Watching them succeed and assisting them throughout all the ups and downs will be extremely rewarding,” he said.

Mr Fardon will be working alongside Rate Money’s chief operating officer, Catherine McFarlane, who has been helping build the lender’s own CRM system and launch a new intranet.

Mr Gair concluded: “We quite simply couldn’t grow at this rate if we didn’t have Catherine’s expert knowledge of the processes required to do so. 

“I’m sure she and Alan will form a wonderful partnership together and drive the whole management team to bigger and better things.”