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Tim Jones, one of the most prominent figures in the field of banking technology, is to join the London-based Centre for the Study of Financial Innovation on January 8 as its new co-director.
Tim is widely regarded as the most technologically literate retail banker in the UK - and perhaps in Europe. From 1996 to 2000, he ran NatWest's retail bank having previously overseen development of the Mondex digital cash project. He also chaired the DTI's Foresight Panel on financial services.
When NatWest was taken over by RBS in 2000, Tim left to develop his own inter-bank payment system, Purseus. More recently, he was chief executive of Simpay, the mobile phone payment system. Tim is also a non-executive director of CapitalOne in Europe; ITG, the US-based institutional stockbroking group; Probability plc, the AIM listed mobile phone gaming company; and is Chairman of SMS UK, a privately held company specialising in payment card fraud alert systems.
Tim (51) graduated from Christ’s College, Cambridge, where he read Natural Sciences, specialising in the History and Philosophy of Science.
Andrew Hilton, the CSFI’s director, said: 'Getting Tim is an enormous coup for the Centre. Now, we will have someone on board with international credibility, both as a retail banker and as a technologist, which will be of huge benefit to the Centre and the City. Most people produce a couple of good ideas each year (at most); Tim produces two before breakfast. Every day.'
Tim and the CSFI know each other well since Tim has been running a joint CSFI/Cisco Systems programme on disruptive technologies in the financial services sector. His paper on the half-dozen emergent technologies that will knock the financial sector for a loop will be published later this year.
David Lascelles, co-director of the CSFI since 1993 (and its co-founder), will become Senior Fellow. In this role, he will continue to be responsible for the CSFI's successful Banana Skins surveys. Andrew Hilton paid tribute to David: 'Without his immense contribution, and contacts, there would be no CSFI. I hope his move to a less hands-on role gives him more opportunity to write (and to think) on our behalf.'
