Lloyds Bank has announced a new addition to its Agriculture team in the East Midlands and South Yorkshire. The appointment of Rachel Borlace as Relationship Director will bring the number of Lloyds Bank specialists serving farming and agribusiness within the region to seven.

Rachel already has six years’ dedicated agricultural banking experience behind her and a further 10 in the wider business sector; she will be supporting a broad portfolio of agriculture clients across the region, providing banking products and services to help them deliver their plans.

Rachel, who lives near Mansfield, has been in the region for nine years; in her spare time she is a keen runner and enjoys competing in half marathons. She said that over the next few years she’s looking forward to helping her clients build their core farming businesses as well as investigate diversification opportunities such as renewable energy and property development.

“Agriculture is an incredibly important sector within Lloyds Bank,” Rachel said. “I believe the broad background of my experience will be very useful in helping farmers in the East Midlands and South Yorkshire deliver their growth and development objectives.

“Whether they are looking to access finance for their investment plans, or improve their cash and risk management strategies to strengthen their balance sheets, we have a commitment to support farmers right across the region.”

Commenting on Rachel’s appointment, Senior Agriculture Manager for the region Steve Thomas said that Rachel would prove an invaluable addition to the team serving the region as they all worked to meet the growth in demand among farmers for lending and specialist banking guidance.

He said: “Despite conditions in some sectors remaining tricky, many farmers are responding to predictions of a bright future for the farming. Certainly, Lloyds Bank has outperformed the Bank of England’s growth rate in terms of lending to the industry over the past 12 months.”