ClearBank has announced the appointment of Neil Drennan as its new chief technology officer (CTO).

Drennan is joining the clearing bank from Visa, where he spent three years as CTO for Visa Visa Cross Border Solutions and Currency Cloud, the global cross-border payments, collections and FX provider.

He has over 15 years of experience across the media and financial services industry, including roles at 10x Future Technologies and Amazon.

In his new role, he will lead the technology team and sit on the group executive team as ClearBank looks to accelerate its expansion into new markets.

The move comes after the company announced the launch of its channel partnerships offer and embedded banking services for corporate customers, enabling it to expand its services and attract new customers.

“Neil will bring invaluable experience in streamlining and scaling our leading cloud-based platform, to support our on-going growth," said Mark Fairless, chief executive, ClearBank. "As we expand into new offerings and markets, our technology will continue to be a critical differentiator in the quality and resilience of our propositions for our clients."

Drennan has previously led technology teams and developed cloud-based financial solutions across the UK, European and US markets.

During his time at Visa, he created the company’s Cloud Centre of Excellence (CCoE) programme to bring cloud-native best practices into Visa and embed them across the business.

Mark Fairless, Chief Executive Officer of ClearBank, said:

Neil Drennan, CTO at ClearBank, said: “I have admired the way in which ClearBank has shaken up the payments and banking sector over the last decade. Its unique approach of blending innovative cloud-based technology with trusted regulatory processes has established it as a leader in UK financial services, powering many of the FinTech industry’s most exciting companies. I look forward to getting on board and bringing my experience of working with international clients to drive ClearBank’s growth over the next few years.”

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