Metro Bank has announced £30m (€35m) funding to support the professional services sector.

Metro Bank will join forces with LDF to provide the funding to small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) over the next 18 months.

Nathan Mollett, head of asset finance, Metro Bank, said: “The ‘professional services’ is an integral sector in the UK economy and we’re delighted to be able to support it with an additional dedicated line of funding.

“We understand how demanding the sector can be and hope that by working closely with LDF we can enable more businesses to prosper.”

This announcement comes following the launch of Metro Bank’s tailored lending offering, which aims to provide short-term funding, including asset finance, to SMEs.

Metro Bank reported strong results for Q2 2016, with 110% year-on-year (YoY) increase in lending, and 74% YoY growth in deposits to £6.6bn (€7.7bn), 52% from business customers.

LDF aims to use this partnership to further strengthen their presence within the legal and accounting sectors, and improve their offering of financial solutions to the top 20% of UK firms within those sectors.