Hargreaves Lansdown has appointed Richard Hebdon as its new chief digital and technology officer. As part of the role, he will be responsible for the firm’s digital function and driving forward its digital transformation strategy. Hebdon joins Hargreaves Lansdown from global information services provider, RELX, where he was chief technical officer for a division of LexisNexis. He brings over 30 years’ experience to the role, after leading and evolving digital functions, holding senior positions at LexisNexis Risk and Elsevier.

Nicola Hardy has joined Specialist 1st as a senior adviser for the Mortgage 1st brand. She joins from Somo, having held the role of head of network operations since 2022. Hardy brings 24 years’ experience in the financial services sector to the role, which includes a three-year spell with Fluent Money Ltd, and joint owning a specialist brokerage from 2018 to 2022. Specialist 1st was initially launched in January 2024 and was granted FCA approval later that month. It advises directly on complex buy-to-let (BTL), adverse credit, second charge lending, commercial purchases, and development and bridging finance.

Aspen Bridging has reached a lending total of £500m since the business was founded in 2017. The lender’s heavy refurbishment product accounted for 36% of deals, representing £185m A further 21% of deals, totalling £101m, has been written on the no valuation product, while development exit bridges account for 17% of deals, coming in at £94m. The remaining 24%, which totals £120m in lending, is spread across commercial, BTL purchases and refinances for capital raising, with just over £40m of this amount being written on the bridge-to-let product. Over the last eight years, the lender’s largest bridge was £8.2m, with an average facility size of £735,000.

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