Sahil Thapa joins from Deutsche Bank to lead technology and innovation teams
Sahil Thapa has been appointed Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Recognise Bank, the digital small business bank serving the UK’s 3.5 million SMEs with lending and business savings products.
Sahil has a long career in banking, primarily in technology and change roles, including over ten years at Deutsche Bank where he was most recently responsible for Strategy Execution, Business Architecture and Data, with a focus on loan businesses in the bank’s Corporate and Investment Banking divisions.
In addition to guiding the development of Recognise Bank’s existing and future technology needs, Sahil will also head up the Bank’s newly created innovation team, announced following the latest fundraise of £8.7 million. The team will focus on developing new and existing products and services, as well as creating new revenue streams.
Sahil’s role will be to leverage technology and Recognise Bank’s deep knowledge of the SME sector to create a roadmap of new products and services, supported by world class customer service.
Sahil said: “Our strategy will be to consolidate and build around Recognise Bank’s existing cloud based digital banking stack and introduce new products and services, while creating seamless integrated experiences for the Bank’s stakeholders – partners, intermediaries, employees and customers. We will leverage data driven analytics to assist decision making and build solutions for customer and business needs.
“In a financial services sector where there is growing choice and competition, it is important for banks to maintain customer centricity while continuing to innovate and be relevant to customer needs. An important lever for innovation is not just what is done by a bank, but more importantly how it is done. This is where technology teams can be catalysts for change and innovation. At Recognise Bank, we will use technology, data and our SME banking experience to create products and services that help companies do more business and do it better.”
Bryce Glover, CEO of Recognise Bank, said: “Technology has been the bedrock of Recognise Bank since the beginning, and it meant we could build the Bank quickly and cost-effectively by partnering with some the sector’s leading fintech providers. But having established Recognise Bank as a force to reckon with in the SME marketplace, as shown by our £100 million in lending, we need to move forward and create a world beating bank for a small business sector that is rapidly changing.
“I’m delighted we have been able to attract somebody of Sahil’s calibre and experience. I truly believe he has the vision and ability to lead the Bank’s technology strategy and give us the tools to help accelerate our growth.”
Recognise Bank was created to provide SMEs with digitally enabled, relationship-led banking, offering a range of unregulated lending options via a network of relationship managers across the UK. Despite only receiving its full authorisation in September 2021, Recognise has already achieved £100 million in lending. In September 2021 it also launched a range of Personal Savings accounts, which has so far attracted £95 million in deposits, launching Business Savings accounts in April this year. It recently announced fresh capital of £8.7 million following a successful fund-raising round, to be used to develop its digital capability and support further lending.
