There’s an international feel in the air with fintech firms GoCardless, GBST and Ohpen announcing their latest appointments.
GoCardless, a direct bank payment solutions provider, has appointed Paul Stoddart as President. Stoddart joins from Mastercard where he was President of its New Payment Platforms, Executive Chairman of Vocalink and a Member of the Mastercard Management Committee.
GBST, which provides technology and digital solutions for financial services organisations, has appointed Kirsty Worgan as its new Chief Commercial Officer. She has worked in senior management and executive positions in financial services and fintech for three decades, including seven years at GBST previously as its Head of Business Development.
Cloud-native core banking platform Ohpen has announced the expansion of its UK team, including the appointment of Ahmed Michla as the Head of Business Development and Phil Bourne as Head of Product in UK and Ireland.
Stoddart Starts
GoCardless says Stoddart will have global responsibility for the organisation including the Strategy, Sales, Product, Marketing and Customer teams.
Prior to Vocalink he was Co-Head of Corporate Finance at Barclaycard. He also spent ten years at NatWest where he held a number of senior roles including in its merchant acquiring and e-commerce business, Worldpay.
Hiroki Takeuchi, Co-Founder and CEO at GoCardless, explains: “This year marks an inflection point at GoCardless as we expand beyond recurring payments to serve a broader range of customer segments and payment use cases. Having the right people to lead us on this journey is critical as we scale our business, develop new products and services with open banking, and explore new markets.”
The London-headquartered fintech firm plans to double down on account-to-account payments, with plans to release its variable recurring payment (VRP) feature shortly in the UK and expand Instant Bank Pay, its solution for one-off payments, across Europe.
GoCardless has been making progress. It picked up $312 million (£230 million) funding in February to take it to unicorn status. The company has additional offices in Australia, France, Germany and the US.
It has rivals of course in the UK. Last month French B2B payments company Libeo officially launched here to take on the likes of GoCardless, Wise, iwoca and Banking Circle.
World of Worgan
GBST explains that Worgan is joining the executive team and reporting to global CEO Robert DeDominicis.
Her former roles include Director of Business Development EMEA at Bravura Solutions, where she was responsible for client acquisition in the UK and South Africa, and Chief Commercial Officer at Smart Pensions.
In her newly established role at GBST, Worgan will manage commercial growth opportunities, mergers and acquisitions, and assist with sales and product expansion.
Founded in 1983, GBST works with over 65 financial brands across Europe, Australia, New Zealand, the US and Canada. The firm is headquartered in Sydney. GBST states that its technology supports over 5.5 million investor accounts under administration with direct to consumer, advised and workplace channel solutions. (In March, and to keep a long story brief, wealth management platform FNZ confirmed it had completed the re-acquisition of GBST’s capital markets division from Anchorage Capital Partners.)
The Bourne Supremacy
Dutch fintech firm Ohpen offers core-banking capabilities for mortgage, loan, saving, investment and pension products. It provides a SaaS-based platform and APIs.
Michla has over two decades worth of experience in the financial services space. Prior to Ohpen, he held positions at Sopra Banking Software and Sopra Group. (The appointment follows the hire of Jerry Mulle as UK MD.)
Bourne joins Ohpen following a career working at Sopra Banking Software, HCL Technologies, IBM, PwC, Santander, Fujitsu, et al. His primary focus will be on secured lending.
Ohpen’s clients include Aegon, BNP Paribas, de Volksbank and RegioBank. The fintech company also has a presence in Antwerp, Barcelona and Slovakia.
