And having been part of the project team that set up the department, his promotion is bringing him back onto familiar ground.

Kriya has fulfilled a number of roles during his decade with the Newcastle, working within the branch network before taking up senior positions within the business systems, project management and mortgage teams.

Part of the Newcastle's Strategic Solutions division, the Card Solutions team is one of the premier providers of MasterCard-approved card programmes in the UK, and has similar operations ongoing in Ireland, Germany, Belgium and Italy.

It runs over 60 prepaid and debit card programmes, including retail gift cards, travel cards, mobile phone cards and corporate incentive cards, and has a further 50 schemes in the pipeline.

Kriya Patel says: "We have very quickly become a recognised world leader in the card solutions market, and are already one of MasterCard's biggest providers in the European market.

"The challenge for us is to keep bringing new customers in whilst ensuring we have the right structures in place to enable us to maintain the highest possible customer service standards.

"Both the number of customers we're servicing and the team itself is growing quickly, and I am focussed on ensuring that this growth is both maintained and controlled in what is a very fast-moving marketplace."

Colin Greaves, Operations Director at Newcastle Building Society, adds: "A range of innovative services such as those provided by our card solutions have grown alongside our more traditional member business in recent years and now contribute strongly to our overall performance.

"Kriya's expertise and his wider knowledge of the Society will be central to our continuing expansion and development in this market, and we are confident that we will see further consistent, controlled growth over the next few years."