Barclays hired the CTO of JPMorgan's much admired UK retail bank
JPMorgan's digital bank, Chase UK, has had an admirable last few years. It received the 'Best British Bank' award two years running, contributed to a 430% profit increase in its respective JPMorgan entity and even joined the London skyline. Internally, the process of building the bank has faced challenges; one of the tech executives navigating those challenges has now departed.
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Paul Clark was the chief information officer and chief technology officer of Chase UK, managing a team of 600 technologists. He's now joining Barclays in London as its chief information officer for payments acceptance. Barclays did not respond to a request for comment on what his new position entails, but it may involve monitoring how the bank authorizes and processes payments.
Chase UK is still hiring despite Clark's departure. The division has 17 openings, spread across JPMorgan's London, Dublin and Bangalore offices. Pay is not thought to be particularly high in the division, however, with one Chase UK employee via Glassdoor stating they've had to apply for Universal Credit on top of their earnings. Chase staff, as part of JPMorgan, will presumably be returning to the office five days per week, which has also elicited complaints.
Clark isn't the first Chase UK executive to depart since its inception. Sanjiv Somani, an MD and UK head of international consumer banking, left in 2023 after a period leading both Chase UK and Nutmeg, JPMorgan's other fintech. More changes may be imminent as Sanoke Viswanathan, CEO of JPMorgan's international consumer and wealth business, is departing for data platform Factset in September.
Clark departing for another, seemingly more corporate, banking job is intriguing, as he previously had an ill-fated stint at HSBC. In an interview with Computer Weekly after he left HSBC, he called his work at the bank a "waste of time" as it refused to adapt its engineering culture to what he desired. He said that while there was an attitude for disruption by execs and junior staff, there was "a whole cohort of people in the middle who ha[d] no intention of doing it."
Ironically, it was those mid-level technologists that Chase UK had trouble hiring in its early days. The bank was reportedly hiring junior people and placing them in VP or director positions. Perhaps the bank's success has proved Clark's notion right.
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