Barclays appoints customer service tech head
Former HSBC CIO to take charge of Barclays UK retail and business banking innovation
By Anh Nguyen | Computerworld UK | Published 13:33, 03 January 12
Barclays has appointed Rumi Contractor (pictured) as chief operating officer of its UK retail and business banking division.
Contractor, who joins from a senior role at HSBC, will be responsible for driving customer service innovation and technology across the division. This includes product design to improvements to the branch network and call centres.
The bank announced plans to invest £1 billion in retail technology and branch refurbishment over four years in July 2010.
Contractor has been global head of service delivery and CEO of global resourcing at HSBC since 2008. He also held a number of CIO roles at HSBC, including at its investment bank in New York, in Europe and in South America. He was also head of HSBC's software development centre in India.
He will join Barclays in his new role on 1 March 2012.
Ashok Vaswani, chief executive of Barclays UK retail and business banking, said: "Rumi is a recognised leader in financial services operations and technology and I am delighted to have someone of his calibre joining Barclays to help us further put customers at the heart of our products, services and operations."
Barclays was one of the UK banks that recently took part in an exercise to demonstrate that it can cope with a cyber attack that prevents customers from accessing cash and public transport disruptions during the London 2012 Olympic Games.
