UK based TSB bank, the banking division of Spanish Sabadell Group which caters to both retail and commercial clients in England, Scotland and Wales has appointed new COO and Customer Banking Director. Post its IT fiasco in early 2018 which resulted in the bank losing over 330.2 Million British Pounds and loss of business with over 80,000 clients – the bank has been making many changes to their business operation procedure and in top level management which continues to this day. And as part of the changes in high level management positions, the bank has now hired Suresh Viswanathan as Chief Operating Officer and Robin Bulloch as Customer Banking Director. This move comes just weeks after Debbie Crosbie was appointed as Chief Executive Officer at TSB Bank.
Debbie Crosbie took to the role of CEO at their head office in London to spearhead the bank’s turnaround programme on its path to recover from last year’s IT fiasco – migration of TSB’s IT platform to parent firm Sabadell which cost the company dearly. TSB spent the better part of last year and continues to spend the first half of 2019 till date in recovery mode as a disorganised and chaotic migration to Sabadell’s Proteo4 platform resulted in millions of clients being locked out of their accounts for several consecutive weeks. While initial reports from the bank following the fiasco suggested the loss was around 150.4 Million British Pounds, the annual reported painted a different picture. Post compensating client claims and remediation the total loss in terms of monetary value stood at 330.2 Million British Pounds.
This fiasco also saw Paul Pester former CEO of TSB Bank resign from his position in the month of September 2018 once preliminary recovery actions were taken. The position was then occupied by TSB Chairman Richard Meddings temporarily until Debbie Crosbie took up the role last month. As part of the recovery process, TSB bank has now taken full direct ownership of its IT estate and appointed Suresh Viswanathan as COO to drive the development of all systems, infrastructure and operations. When speaking about his upcoming position as COO at TSB Bank commented,
“With a strong customer base, committed partners, a new technology platform, and reach across the whole country, we have a huge opportunity to improve the speed, ease and quality of service for millions of TSB customers”.
Viswanathan who is currently serving as COO at Barclay’s UK office has been part of Barclasy’s family for last 11 years will cut all existing ties with the firm and join TSB in the month of August. Meanwhile, Bulloch has already joined TSB Bank as Customer Banking Director and is responsible for leading customer service operations across all channels – branch, mobile and online. Prior to his appointment at TSB Bank, Bulloch served as Managing Director of Community Banking at Lloyds Bank and as CEO of Tesco Personal Finance. He also worked at RBS for more two decades. Given their extensive career with in financial service sector, these two newly hired industry veterans are expected greatly help the bank move forward from last year’s fiasco and regain its former glory.
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