UK-based peer-to-peer invoice finance platform MarketInvoice has appointed Shaun Alexander as its new head of risk.

Alexander joins from Santander, where he was head of risk for asset-based lending, overseeing credit risk for the bank’s invoice finance and other asset finance products. He began his career at Barclay in 1984, where he worked in credit risk for 22 years before moving to management consulting firm Oliver Wyman in 2007, and to Santander in 2008.

At MarketInvoice, Alexander will lead the risk team’s development of artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities to improve the quality of the platform’s risk models and credit management. He will also work together with the company’s COO Ilya Kondrashov in formulating the company’s management strategy and improving credit scores systems and risk policies.

“For too long, as I have witnessed first-hand, the status quo in risk management has gone unchallenged,” Alexander says. “Much more can be done with the available technology to drive and enhance the quality and speed of risk decisions for UK businesses.”

MarketInvoice allows SMEs to borrow money by selling its unpaid invoices to investors. Since its launch in 2011, the online platform has raised more than £1.1bn in funding to thousands of UK businesses.

The new appointment forms part of the company’s strategy to double its lending to £2bn in 2017 and further strengthen its position as one of Europe’s largest invoice finance platforms, following a £7.2mn investment by Polish MCI.TechVentures Fund last year.

Commenting on the appointment, Kondrashov says: “We have been steadily strengthening our management team over the past 12 months and Alexander’s addition enhances our team further. As we grow, in handling the scale and volume of interest in the business, it is imperative that we have the resources to deliver on our customer promise whilst delivering the highest quality risk tools. As such, adopting the latest technology is key to driving success.”