CEO Stephen Jones is the only full-time employee confirmed so far, although Mortgage Solutions has learnt Eric Leenders, previously executive director, retail and private banking at the British Banker’s Association (BBA) has been awarded a head of personal position at UK Finance.
The permanent structure of the trade body has not been agreed yet with all staff completing a Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) arrangement last week, with many including the Council of Mortgage Lender’s staff still in previous offices. No appointees have been confirmed at the product and service level yet.
The trade body confirmed its board today, which includes CEO Virgin Money Jayne-Anne Gadhia who leads diversity, John Jenkins, CEO, Amicus Finance leading on asset-based finance, Barclays’ Ashok Vaswani, CEO Barclays UK, leading on cards, unsecured lending and ring-fenced banks and Paul Lynam, CEO of Secure Trust Bank leading on challengers banks and SMEs.
On fintech, Peter Smith, co-founder & CEO, Blockchain will be leading the board and Tracey McDermott, CBE head of corporate, public and regulatory affairs will be leading on fraud and financial crime prevention. Joe Garner, CEO of Nationwide Building Society will be leading on mutuals and Mark Sismey-Durrant the CEO of Hampshire Trust Bank will be leading on specialist banks.
Bob Wigley will chair UK Finance’s board which he said has been developed to ensure senior and fair representation across the industry.
The new organisation will take on most of the activities previously carried out by the Asset Based Finance Association, the British Bankers’ Association, the Council of Mortgage Lenders, Financial Fraud Action UK, Payments UK and The UK Cards Association.
UK Finance will operate from Angel Court in the City of London, EC2.
The new trade body now represents over 300 firms in the UK providing credit, banking, markets and payment-related services.
Stephen Jones, CEO of UK Finance, said: “The UK’s finance and banking sector is undergoing an exciting transformation with innovation and technology revolutionising customer services; from tapping a card or mobile phone to make payments, securing a mortgage via video chat or using ‘big data’ to combat financial crime, the boundaries between banking services are blurring, enabling the industry to become more efficient and customer-focused.”
