Paul joined us in 2018 on a level 3 Business Admin Apprenticeship. Studying alongside his daily role at Borderway, he proudly achieving a distinction grade. This admin assistant role mainly involved processing finance applications ready for the underwriters to assess. He picked this up quickly and took on many additional tasks and skills along with extra responsibilities, proving himself a dependable member of the team.
Paul is the youngest underwriter in Borderway’s history but with his extensive knowledge of the business he is well prepared to undertake the role, ensuring we continue to provide our customers with the support they require.
During his time at Borderway, so far, he has celebrated his 21st birthday, learned how to make a good cup of tea, tried a world of new foods, including Kit-Kats, fruit, pate and steak and has used his Community day to learn to paint, all whilst being fuelled by a ridiculous number of McDonalds chicken nuggets.
Over the last 5 years he has grown in both knowledge and confidence so when one of our Underwriters, Sue, decided to retire, Paul felt confident in his ability and the support he would be offered to take on the new challenge.
The role of an Underwriter is to assess finance applications combining their experience with modern technology to provide a personal, friendly and professional service whilst ensuring we deliver good outcomes to our customers.
We asked Paul ‘why did you want to join Borderway?’
“My Mum worked for The Cumberland for 30 years so the company felt close to home for me. As she had been there such a long time, I knew they were a good company to work for.”
What made you want to go for the Underwriting role?
What have been the biggest challenges, achievements and your proudest moments during your time with Borderway?
“My biggest challenge at Borderway was due to Covid. To complete my apprenticeship I had two end assessments which were meant to be in person but due to restrictions these had to be changed to over Zoom. I had completed a 25 page portfolio of work which would have been submitted, but instead I had to have an interview based on the portfolio.
"My biggest achievement to date is either passing my apprenticeship with a distinction or passing my Specialist Automotive Finance exam.
"My proudest moment is being signed off to independently underwrite. Sue gave us a lot of notice that she was planning to retire so I could shadow her and do my training alongside her and the other underwriters, to make the most of her experience. I trained from May 2023 until I was signed off on the 1st of February 2024. I was signed off by Jude, our Operations Manager and Mike, our Managing Director. I took confidence from their confidence in me!”
We asked Craig, our Admin Team Leader, for his thoughts on how Paul has progressed through Borderway. He said “Paul has always shown willingness to learn new tasks and skills so I wasn’t surprised when he put himself forward to learn this new role. We put together an extensive training plan which he really enjoyed and was successfully signed off as an Underwriter on schedule. It’s great seeing our colleagues develop and progress into different roles within the team.”
We also asked Jude, our Operations Manager regarding Paul’s journey with Borderway and she said “Its lovely to see Paul’s transformation over the last 5 years from young shy boy straight from school who I interviewed for the business administration apprenticeship, growing in confidence and progressing into the role of Underwriter for the business”.