HSBC executive joins Delta Capita as Head of KYC business
Gary McClure has joined financial services professional services firm Delta Capita in its London office. The former HSBC executive will head Delta Capita’s KYC services business starting in September.
“Gary’s industry experience in financial crime and KYC operations will provide the right leadership. We are very pleased that Gary is joining,” said Joe Channer, Delta Capita’s founder and chief executive.
McClure brings over 25 years of industry experience to the London-headquartered consultancy. Most recently, he was a Managing Director at HSBC, responsible for the global KYC operations function across investment, commercial and retail banking. Prior to that he headed up client onboarding at Barclays Capital and was an Executive Director in UBS’s global banking and markets operations business covering KYC and client data operations. McClure started his career in consulting at PwC, and later on also served Big Four rival KPMG prior to moving into banking.
Speaking of his new role, McClure said he was “very excited to be joining Delta Capita” at what he describes as a “fascinating time” for the global financial services industry. “Key areas of banking are being disrupted by new technologies and business models, yet none more so than the area of client onboarding.”
Leveraging technology, challenger and digital-only banks are turning Know Your Customer (KYC) pain points into their advantage. According to a recent analysis by Enigma Consulting into the onboarding process at banks, performance between institutions varies widely. While one traditional bank needs days to fully add a new client to its roster, digital leaders manage to serve the same client in the space of a few minutes.
Meanwhile, Know Your Customer has also become a high priority for banks due to its importance for risk management and complying to anti-money laundering regulation. Banks that have insufficient knowledge of their customers and fail to comply are not only fined by regulatory bodies, but also risk being slammed by media and politicians, causing significant reputational damage.
Delta Capita supports banks with implementing KYC best practices, as well as with solutions and managed services. According to McClure, “Delta Capita’s deep expertise in financial crime together with its capability in technology software and infrastructure allows the firm to develop service solutions that meet the needs of clients.”
The appointment comes a few months after Delta Capita bolstered its KYC offering with a partnership with FinTech company JJCFinTech, and builds on a previous partnership with Fenergo. The two partnerships allow the consulting firm to provide an end-to-end service to its clients, said Jon May, who leads Delta Capita’s Financial Crime practice.
One of the propositions McClure will focus on is Delta Capita’s shared managed service KYC proposition. “The economics no longer stack up for banks to build proprietary systems to manage regulation – IT has ever-diminishing intellectual property and is a service that often represents millions if not billions in cost. I am convinced it is more cost-effective for banks to use as a mutualised managed service solution.” In such a construction, banks share expertise and modern technology under a mutualised cost model, while benefiting from industry best practice service models.
Delta Capita has successfully deployed similar models in other areas of banking, such as Structured Products issuance and Securities Post Trade Processing, and is now pushing to build a comparable footprint in the customer lifecycle segment.
McClure joins a growing roster of senior ex-bankers working in Delta Capita’s ranks, including recent joiners David Long (formerly EMEA Group COO at Credit Suisse) and Philip Freeborn (formerly the CIO at Barclays and UBS).