The Board

Chairman - Richard North
Richard North was formerly a partner at Coopers & Lybrand, before spending 9 years as a FTSE 100 Finance Director, firstly with the Burton Group and then with InterContinental Hotels Group. He then took on the CEO role at IHG, whilst also being Chairman of Britvic Soft Drinks. From 2007-08, Richard was Chairman of Woolworths Group. He also holds a couple of non-Executive Director posts, including one at Save the Children.

Independent director - Michael Alexander
Michael has extensive experience of the energy market having worked at BP and British Gas. As Managing Director, he and his team devised the multi-product strategy with which they took the business into the deregulated market place, leading the company into credit cards [Goldfish], electricity [dual fuel], and telecoms. From 2003-05, he was Chief Executive of British Energy, before pursuing a portfolio career. Michael is Chairman of the Association of Train Operating Companies; Chairman of TGE Marine AG; Non-Executive Director of Costain Plc; and a member of the European Advisory Board for Landis and Gyr.

Independent director - Moira Black
After qualifying as a chartered accountant with Price Waterhouse, she became the first female partner in the London office in 1984 specialising in corporate taxation and corporate finance.  Since 1993 she has held a number of non-executive appointments, mainly in the public sector.  She was appointed a CBE in 1998 for services to consumers and to healthcare.

Independent director - Professor Martin Cave
Martin is Professor and Director of the Centre for Management under Regulation, Warwick Business School.  As well as his academic work, he has also undertaken studies for the European Commission and advised regulatory agencies.  He has undertaken several independent reviews for the UK government.

Independent director - Stephen Locke
Stephen is a specialist consultant on consumer policy and regulation, with an extensive background in both areas. He currently serves on the Boards of the National Consumer Council and ICSTIS, as well as advising on standards in TV, radio, advertising and insurance.  He has most recently been a member of the independent Financial Services Consumer Panel advising the Financial Services Authority on regulatory issues.

Maurice Cleaves, Managing Director, Deutsche Bank
Maurice Cleaves is Managing Director at Deutsche Bank responsible for the EMEA Region Cash Management Product Management organisation. He joined Deutsche Bank in September 2006 after 26 years with JP Morgan and legacy institutions. Prior to joining Deutsche Bank Maurice was Chairman of the IBOS Association. Maurice has been a Director of SWIFT UK, CHAPS and a member of the APACS council.

Ger Moffatt, Head of Post office Account management, Bank of Ireland.
Ger is an Executive in the Group Payments business of the Bank of Ireland Group. He is a qualified accountant and has worked in a variety of financial, commercial and general management roles for over 20 years in the Bank. He has been a senior member of the leadership team in the Payments business for over ten years. In this time he has been at the forefront of a range of strategic initiatives in all its payments businesses, covering cash, electronic, ATM, cards. These initiatives have been delivered in its personal and business sectors and in the UK and Irish market place.
His current role is UK based as the Head of Post office account management with responsibility for the overall business and contractual relationship between BOI and the Post office.

James Barclay, Executive Director, J.P. Morgan
James is an Executive Director in J.P. Morgan’s Treasury and Securities Services within the Global Market Infrastructures team, jointly responsible for managing strategic regulatory issues and industry developments in EMEA. He joined J.P. Morgan in 2007 after heading the New Business Initiatives team at the Euro Banking Association and before that Lloyds Bank’s securities operation in Paris. He is a member of the Board of the Euro Banking Association and has had extensive experience in both the payments and securities industries from operational delivery to strategic positioning.

Ron Kalifa, Head of Product Management, Royal Bank of Scotland
Ron was appointed Head of Product Management, Global Transaction Services, in July 2009 with responsibility for Global Trade Finance, Commercial Cards, Hanco, Global Merchant Services, and International Cash Management.  He has previously held a variety of positions within The Royal Bank of Scotland Group, including roles as Head of Internet Banking, Managing Director of WorldPay and Streamline International, and Managing Director of Retailer Solutions.

John Hughes, Director, Retail Banking, Co-operative Bank
John Hughes joined the Co-operative Bank in 2004 as Director of Retail Banking. At the start of 2006 John's role was brought within the newly formed CFS Business Management team, and his remit extended to cover the whole profit and loss performance of the Retail Bank. Prior to joining CFS John held a series of Executive roles spanning Sales, Strategy Development and Change Management.

Colin A Painter, Payments Industry Director, Service Delivery, HSBC Bank Plc
Colin has 40 years experience in financial services gained at senior and executive level.  His areas of specialism are process, change and project management, having sponsored and lead several major change initiative programmes within HSBC.  His most recent appointment is as Head of Card Operations for HSBC in the UK with responsibiliy for Customer Service for Credit Card Issuing, Credit Card Acquiring and all aspects of Debit Card Service.  He is also responsible for all the associated major projects that support cards in HSBC.  His current appointment as Payments Industry Director covers, in addition to VocaLink, Board level representation for HSBC for Cash, Cheque and processing.

Neil Lover, Head of Payments Strategy, Nationwide Building Society
As Head of Payments Strategy at Nationwide Building Society, Neil's scope of responsibility includes Group strategy for electronic payments, cards, cash and cheques, as well as payment token suppliers and Group payments risk. Neil has served on the Chaps and Cheque & Credit Clearing Boards and has sponsored many payment change programmes in Nationwide. Neil has worked in the banking industry for over 20 years at senior and Executive levels and has wide experience of Retail, Change Management and Operations.

Juan Olaizola, Executive Director of Manufacturing, Santander
As Executive Director for Manufacturing at Santander, Juan is responsible for IT, Operations, Organisation and Services divisions. Previous responsibilities within the Santander Group include the CIO Strategic Office, from where he drove multiple transformation projects, as well as being integral to the team responsible for Abbey's acquisition in 2004. Prior to joining Santander, Juan worked at IBM for 18 years, where he held different executive positions in the Services division. He is a director of ISBAN, the Santander Group Technology company.

Kevin Page, Operations Director, Clydesdale and Yorkshire Banks
Kevin is currently Operations Director for Clydesdale and Yorkshire Banks. Having spent his early career in the aircraft industry and power engineering sector, he gained over 10 years experience in the international sales and marketing of business services. In 2002 he joined National Australia Bank Group in the UK to run marketing delivery for Clydesdale and Yorkshire Banks, before heading the Group's Direct Banking operations in the UK from 2004. In November 2006, Kevin’s contact centres were awarded "Best in the World" status by Contact Centre World.com based on their innovative customer and people programmes.

Russell Saunders, Payments & Business Services Director, Lloyds Banking Group
Russell is a career banker with 20 years experience, specialising in operations, compliance and change management. He is currently Group Payments & Business Services Director for Lloyds Banking Group. Russell is a strong advocate of customer led innovation in payments and has led a number of initiatives on behalf of the industry including Faster Payments.

Steve Allen, Head of Global Payments, Barclays

Steve is Head of Global Payments at Barclays. Prior to this, he was the Director of Operations for Barclays Corporate with responsibility for a number of areas including Lending Operations, International Trade Operations, Account Servicing, Business Continuity, Supplier Management and for Offshore Services function in India.

Steve joined Barclays in 2006 after spending 17 years at Citigroup where he held a variety of roles in the UK, Ireland, India, and the US.

Steve has extensive Operations and Customer Service experience through a number of senior management positions in Citigroup's Corporate and Investment Bank and Global Consumer Bank including leading the payment operations in both Europe and the US. In his latest role at Citi, Steve was Executive Vice President, National Director of Client Services for Citigroup based in New York.

Paul Smee, Chief Executive, Payments Council
Paul Smee joined UK Payments (formerly APACS) as Chief Executive in January 2005 and in March 2007 was also apointed Chief Executive of the Payments Council.

Paul started his working life as a civil servant in the Department of Trade and Industry where he worked from 1978 to 1988. In 1988 Paul moved on to the London Stock Exchange where he was Head of Public Policy and Speechwriter. In 1994 he went to the Association of British Insurers as Head of Life Insurance and then moved to the Independent Television Commission where he was, for three years, Director of Regions and Public Affairs. He became the first Director General at the Association of Independent Financial Advisers in September 1999.

In December 2008, Paul appeared in Credit Today's "Credit 100" following his work on the first National Payments Plan, a strategic framework for payments innovation which has set the agenda for the next ten years.

Andrew Bailey, Executive Director and Chief Cashier, Bank of England
Andrew has worked in the Bank for over 20 years, starting in the International Divisions, before moving to Banking Supervision.  This was followed by his first spell in Banking Services, as senior manager for Policy, Risk and Special Operations. After that he was the Governor's Private Secretary, and then Head of the International Economic Analysis Division in Monetary Analysis. He returned to Banking Services as Chief Cashier at the beginning of 2004.