Interim Chief Technology Officer; CTO – Banking​/FinTech

Interim Chief Technology Officer (CTO) – Banking / Fin Tech Role Summary

The Interim CTO will provide immediate senior technology leadership during a period of transition, transformation, or accelerated growth. This role requires a highly experienced Fin Tech/BFSI technology executive capable of rapidly assessing the current landscape, stabilising operations, addressing critical risks, and driving short‑term delivery milestones. The Interim CTO will ensure continuity, regulatory compliance, technology governance, and momentum across digital banking, payments, and core financial systems until permanent leadership is appointed.

• Conduct a concise but rigorous review of technology architecture, engineering capabilities, security posture, and vendor landscape.
• Identify immediate operational risks and implement stabilising controls.
• Ensure platform availability, resilience, and incident management are tightly governed.
• Build trust with executive leadership, regulators, and key banking/PSP partners.

• Provide hands‑on strategic and operational leadership across engineering, data, architecture, Dev Ops/SRE, and IT functions.
• Implement or strengthen governance frameworks for change control, release management, cyber risk, and compliance oversight.
• Act as senior technology representative for board, investor, and regulatory interactions.

• Ensure full compliance with standards such as PSD2, FCA/PRA requirements, GDPR, ISO
  27001, SOC 2, PCI‑DSS.
• Review and uplift cybersecurity controls, vulnerability management, and monitoring.

• Drive execution of high‑priority initiatives (e.g., onboarding/KYC flows, payment capability expansion, core platform upgrades).
• Remove delivery blockers, improve engineering discipline, and ensure teams deliver at pace.
• Improve reliability (SLAs/SLOs), incident response, and operational resilience.
• Validate or refine technology architecture for scalability, modularity, and future‑state strategy.
• Oversee API ecosystem, cloud infrastructure, and data platform quality.
• Make pragmatic decisions balancing short‑term stability with medium‑term strategic direction.

• Create a clear technology roadmap, risk register, and capability assessment for the incoming permanent CTO.
• Ensure a smooth, documented handover including architecture overview, operational processes, and key initiatives.

Technical & Industry Expertise

• 12–15+ years in senior technology roles within banking, payments, digital lending, or Fin Tech.
• Core banking systems / BaaS platforms
• Digital identity, KYC/AML, fraud engines
• Payments (Faster Payments, SEPA, SWIFT, cards)
• Cloud-native architectures and API-driven services
• Proven success in interim or turnaround CTO roles.
• Ability to assess, decide, and execute quickly with incomplete information.
• Strong stabilisation and transformation credentials.
• Skilled communicator with executives, boards, investors, and regulators.

• Deep knowledge of financial services regulatory obligations.
• Track record in passing audits, managing regulatory remediation, and uplifting cyber security.

• Ability to rapidly organise teams around critical priorities.
• Strong background in Agile delivery, Dev Ops, SRE, and operational excellence.
• Adept at simplifying overly complex technology stacks and processes.