O2 today announced that it has appointed James Le Brocq as Managing Director of its financial services business, a division of Telefonica O2 UK, effective 5 July 2010.
James will be responsible for the overall strategy and operation of the financial services business at O2. He will report to Telefonica O2 UK Board member Tim Sefton, who is also responsible for Business Strategy and New Business Development
In July last year O2 launched two products under the banner of O2 Money: Cash Manager and Load & Go. They were extremely well received with over 100,000 applications in the first seven days, representing the fastest-growing acquisition of new customers for a UK card product ever. O2 Money is designed to advance the increasing synergies between mobile and money. It is an important step towards O2 becoming a leading service provider with mobile at its core, and will be a launch pad into a wide range of mobile banking services.
Tim Sefton said: ‘The successful launch of O2 Money last year was our first step into financial services beyond device insurance. James, with his formidable track record in financial services, will now lead us into the next phase and deliver our vision for the future.’
James said: ‘O2 is the clear market leader in the UK and this is a very exciting opportunity to take the enormous initial success of O2 Money and build O2’s financial services arm into a solid, innovative business that delivers value to O2 and to its customers.
James has over 25 years of banking experience, most recently as part of the turnaround team at Northern Rock. Previously, he established the start-up prepaid card business at Alliance & Leicester and was responsible for the bank’s International Payment business. Before that he was with the Barclays Group for more than 20 years; latterly at Barclaycard in a variety of roles including as Interim Managing Director for the UK Consumer Card business.