Source: clearXxhange
clearXchange, a joint venture among Bank of America (NYSE: BAC), Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) and JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM), has named Michael Kennedy as the company's chief executive officer.
Kennedy co-founded and served as chairman of clearXchange while working as executive vice president and head of Innovation and Payments Strategy for Wells Fargo Bank. As CEO, Kennedy will devote 100 percent of his time to leading clearXchange. He will be based in San Francisco.
"The three founding banks have more than 50 percent of the nation's online banking market, which makes us the largest bank-focused person-to-person payment system," said Kennedy. "We are looking forward to serving even more customers by growing our end user base at the existing clearXchange banks, as well as adding new bank partners."
In a joint statement, the board said, "We knew it was critical to select a CEO who has a focus on the consumer, deep experience in emerging mobile and digital payments, and understands how banks operate. In Kennedy, we found that individual."
"clearXchange has tremendous upside for both consumers and the financial services industry," added Kennedy. "There are an estimated $900 billion in annual person-to-person payments in the U.S.1, most of which are transacted in cash and checks. Helping to turn these person-to-person payments into digital transactions will enhance the experience for senders and receivers as well as take costs down for consumers and banks."
As executive vice president and head of Wells Fargo's Innovation and Payments Strategy, Kennedy drove mobile and emerging payments, strategy across all payment products, and technology research and development. Prior to this role, Kennedy led strategy and implementation for Wells Fargo's Wealth Management group, which he joined in 2004.
Before joining Wells Fargo, Kennedy worked at McKinsey & Company consulting to financial services institutions, was the head of Strategy and Business Development at Vail Associates, and was an associate at a venture capital firm.
Kennedy earned his Bachelor of Science with distinction and Masters of Science degrees in Industrial Engineering from Stanford University and his MBA with distinction from Harvard Business School.