Three new directors appointed to the Board of the New Payment System Operator

Source: New Payment System Operator

The New Payment System Operator (NPSO) has today (8 March 2018) announced the appointment of three new Board members, as it moves closer to taking responsibility for the UK’s retail payment systems.

Christine Ashton, Chief Digital Officer in residence at SAP, who has also worked as SVP Technology for Thomson Reuters and has held global technology leadership roles at BG Group, TfL and BP, and Jean-Yves Rotté-Geoffroy, former Chief Procurement Officer at GSK and Executive Vice President IT & Shared Services at AmBev in São Paulo, who has also led Procurement organisations at Kraft, AB InBev and P&G, have been appointed to join the Board as Independent Non-Executive Directors. In addition, Matthew Hunt, who was last week appointed as Chief Operating Officer (COO) of the NPSO, has also been invited to join the Board as an Executive Director.

Following these appointments the NPSO Board will comprise of ten directors (the Independent Chair, five Independent Non-Executive Directors, two Non-Executive Directors and the Chief Executive and Chief Operating Officer of the company) with a further two Independent Non-Executive roles to fill.

Melanie Johnson, Chair of the NPSO, said:

“Christine, Jean-Yves and Matthew bring world-class excellence in technology, procurement and payments respectively to our Board, which already comprises of extensive expertise across banking and infrastructure management. A strong Board will enable us to deliver change successfully while maintaining a clear focus on service delivery.”

The NPSO Board will also be advised and challenged by two Advisory Councils, representing end users and payment system participants, to ensure the UK's payment systems are run for the public good. The open recruitment and appointment processes for these advisory councils are on course.

The NPSO has been established to develop the capability and capacity of the UK’s retail payment systems, which between them process over £6.4 trillion in value of payments every year. The NPSO is bringing together Bacs Payment Schemes Limited (Bacs), the Faster Payments Scheme Limited (FPSL), the Cheque & Credit Clearing Company Limited (C&CCC) and UK Payments Administration (UKPA), to take an over-arching view of operating and developing the retail payments sector for the benefit of the UK economy.

Comments: (2)

Bob Lyddon
Bob Lyddon - Lyddon Consulting Services - Thames Ditton 08 March, 2018, 17:07Be the first to give this comment the thumbs up 0 likes

According to LinkedIn Jean-Yves Rotté-Geoffroy is based in Sao Paolo. He will have to be registered at Companies House as a Non-Resident Director of NPSO Ltd - an indicator for Enhanced Due Diligence on the account holder and the individual, and even for withdrawal/denial of banking services, by many UK banks under current AML/CFT policies. NPSO will no doubt have to be getting its accounts opened in Lithuania or Cyprus instead, like the other Payments Market participants who have been de-risked, although - not itself being a Payment Service Provider within the meaning of PSD2 - it will be unable to make a complaint about its treatment to the PSR under the 2017 Payment Services Regulations Article 105.

Bob Lyddon
Bob Lyddon - Lyddon Consulting Services - Thames Ditton 10 March, 2018, 11:26Be the first to give this comment the thumbs up 0 likes

According to LinkedIn there are actually three Jean-Yves Rotté-Geoffroys, or rather three-in-one, two parts of the trinity being based in Sao Paolo and one in London, omnipresent, everywhere and nowhere, baby, flying across the country, wearing which hat is it today? I won't make a fuss though it's obvious...that this may be enough to skirt round the Non-Resident Director issue, and that is a silver lining.