With mobile money becoming increasingly important, the UK's Faster Payments Scheme has hired telecoms industry veteran Craig Tillotson as its first managing director.
Faster Payments is a multi-million pound system, developed by VocaLink and backed by 13 clearing bank members through the Payments Council, enabling Brits to make near real-time transfer of phone, Internet and standing order payment instructions.
The service was spun off into a separate company, Faster Payments Scheme Limited, last year and Tillotson is its first MD, joining from management consultancy AT Kearney, where he was associate director at the communications, media and technology practice.
Prior to AT Kearney, Tillotson spent several years at Vodafone in roles including product management director, where he created, developed and launched the Vodafone Live mobile Internet service and the Mobile Connect Card. He also spent four years as strategy director at T-Mobile UK.
The new man joins a service that is finally beginning to gain traction after a slow start that saw member banks initially taking a cautious, phased approach to rolling the system out. With European legislation coming into force in January that effectively made Faster Payments the default system for processing online, phone banking and standing order payments in the UK, progress has accelerated and volumes have surged.
As it welcomes its telco veteran MD, Faster Payments is also set to become increasingly important for mobile payments as the linchpin for new services, such as Barclays Pingit and the upcoming Payments Council-developed, industry-wide imitator.
"I am delighted to have been appointed as managing director of Faster Payments Scheme Limited at a time when the scheme is gaining real traction with consumers. I am really looking forward to addressing the key strategic choices the scheme faces in the rapidly evolving payments landscape - particularly in the mobile space," says Tillotson.