TSB makes key appointment in IT restructure

TSB has named Mark Curran as director of technology transformation to head up the restructuring of its IT operations.

Curran will head a project that the bank announced in March to transfer control of IT to an internal team, from the tech subsidiary of its parent company, Sabadell. The plan emerged following TSB’s disastrous migration to a new core banking platform last year.

The project ownership of IT, including the Proteo4UK platform, will be transitioned from Sabadell-owned supplier Sabis to the TSB in-house IT team. The restructure was announced after months of problems arose from the bank’s migration of millions of customer accounts from the Lloyds Banking Group IT system that had hosted them to the Proteo4UK platform.

TSB saw the move to Proteo4UK as a way to cut costs and help it compete in the digital age. But the bank has admitted that the botched migration cost it a total of £330m, including customer compensation, additional resources, fraud and forgone income. The disaster has also damaged its reputation.

Curran, who will report to TSB CIO Mike Errington, joins from CYBG, which owns Clydesdale Bank, Yorkshire Bank and Virgin Money UK.

He has worked in the banking IT sector for 30 years and chaired the industry-wide programme to deliver the UK’s current account switching service. Before CYBG, Curran was director of payments technical services at Lloyds Banking Group.

Curran said he is looking forward to helping TSB deliver the changes to its IT operating model, and Errington added: “Mark is well known within the banking industry for his vast knowledge, as well as his tenacity in seeing projects like this through to completion.”