Trade Ledger, a technology provider for the commercial banking and financial services industry, has announced three senior appointments as it seeks to expand its lending-as-a-service (LaaS) platform capabilities around the world.

Rikard af Ekenstam (pictured) has been appointed as managing director, Europe, a new role for the business. Jarrad Hubble joins in a newly created role of chief revenue officer for Trade Ledger’s global operations. A third new role has been created to underpin Trade Ledger’s Asia Pacific (Apac) growth ambitions, with Alan Beattie being appointed as executive director of Apac.

Af Ekenstam joins from OakNorth, a UK-based bank and tech company backed by GIC and SoftBank, where he focused on business development and corporate development. Before that he held leadership positions within commercial and investment banking, including head of the Nordic region for Mizuho, head of the Emea region for Moody’s Analytics Knowledge Services, and head of new markets for ABN Amro.

Hubble was most recently managing director at NatWest Markets, where he oversaw the international payments business, developing solutions for many of the world’s largest ecommerce marketplaces. Previous to that, he was head of the commercial function at Currencies Direct, where he grew business-to-business services from infancy and expanded the company across the globe.

Meanwhile, Beattie’s international financial services experience includes over 25 years with HSBC in a variety of senior executive roles, including as global CEO of private wealth solutions, regional head of commercial banking in Latin America, and deputy CEO, Europe.

Welcoming the trio to the company, Martin McCann, Trade Ledger’s CEO and founder, says: “The appointment of Jarrad, Rikard and Alan into these new positions in our executive team gives us the strength and depth to drive our international expansion as well as, importantly, improving access to finance for SMEs and mid-market corporates globally.”

The new hires are the latest in a string of senior appointments to the Trade Ledger team, with Bakhtier Pulatov taking up a London-based role in mid-2020 as global head of product, Paul Carmichael joining the company to lead sales in the Asia Pacific region, and Roger Vincent being promoted from general manager to managing director of Trade Ledger’s UK business.

This latest development follows a successful £13.5mn fundraising round by Trade Ledger in February, which McCann told GTR at the time would enable it to triple its customer base during 2021.