BNY Mellon’s three key financial technology executives added last month were given the directive to pursue investments and fintech partnerships in natural language processing, rule-based automation systems and robotic process automation (RPA), among other areas, Bank Innovation has learned.

The initiatives had previously not been disclosed.

Earlier this month, BNY Mellon filled three executive positions: Digital Business Development Leader; Client Journey Reimagination Leader; and Advanced Digital Solutions Leader. For these roles, BNY appointed Alina Peradze, Janelle Prevost and Michael Demissie respectively. All three report to Roman Regelman, the bank’s Senior Executive Vice President and Head of Digital.

BNY Mellon has a market capitalization of about $47.6 billion.

“Our clients’ needs demand that we deliver the very best digital experience and innovation. Our growing bench of digital talent will sharpen and unlock even more value in a constantly changing, disruptive environment,” said Mr. Regelman said in the announcement earlier this month.

All three hires have experience with building new digital initiatives at their FIs. Peradze, for instance, served as CEO of Saga Group Inc, while Prevost led the digital transformation strategy at investment firm BlackRock, and Demissie was the global lead for robotics and AI at State Street Corp.

BNY Mellon is also looking to build its digital partnership team under Lucien Foster, head of digital partnerships at BNY. Foster told Bank Innovation that his team is currently hiring buy and sell side technology experts. His department falls under BNY Mellon’s Digital Council, which was set up last September.

Other Key Hires in April

Implications of Swift naming a new CEO

Four months after Swift‘s CEO announced his plans to step down, the international payments company named Javier Pérez-Tasso as its CEO last week.

After a four-month search within and outside the institution, Swift’s HR Committee selected Pérez-Tasso, the company’s Americas and UK chief executive since 2015 to full the role of CEO. He will be replacing Gottfried Leibbrandt, who announced he was stepping down in December after serving in the position for seven years. Leibbrandt did not provide a reason for his departure.

Over the past year, Swift has been facing tough competition from companies like IBM and Ripple, which have been exploring cross-border payment using blockchain technology. Pérez-Tasso, will have to combat these rivals as well as reduce the company’s high operational costs. Pérez-Tasso will start in his new position on 1 July.

Why U.S. Bank hired its first chief digital officer

This earnings season all the big banks, and many of the midsized banks, had one thing in common: they all mentioned the desire to stress on customer engagement through a digital medium. That includes Bank of America that announced it was adding 350 financial centers in new markets with the latest technology or Capital One that said it will exit its data centers and go fully into the public cloud by the end of 2020, all in the name to promote better customer experience.

A part of that customer-engagement narrative is coming out of U.S. Bank, which appointed Derek White its first-ever chief digital officer this month.

White has a background in creating customer engagement through digital channels as the global head of client solutions at Spanish bank BBVA. And before that, he served as the chief design and digital officer at Barclays for nearly 12 years.

At U.S. Bank, White will be responsible for designing new types of digital engagement to expand the bank’s digital footprint beyond its core-physical market in the Midwest.

Already the bank has seen a growth in its number of mobile and online customers. In the most recent earnings call two weeks ago, US Bank CEO Any Cecere noted that the bank experienced a growth in the percentage of customers accessing the bank’s mobile application, which has climbed to 48% in 2019 from 43% in 2018.