Ian is an experienced and internationally recognised payments product and technology executive. He oversees the modernisation of NatWest’s payments technology estate, with responsibility for the run, change and continuous availability of payments as a systemically critical participant in the industry.

He also serves on the Board of Directors of SWIFT.

Lee has extensive banking experience in product / profit and loss (P&L) management, risk, policy setting and strategy. He joined NatWest in 2018 after 13 years at the Co-operative Bank, latterly owning the payment strategy together with responsibility for regulatory change, including PSD2 and key payment scheme relationships. He is now responsible for the definition and articulation of NatWest’s payments strategy.

The appointments follow NatWest’s strategic investment in Icon Solutions in March 2024. NatWest also announced in September 2023 that it had selected the Icon Payments Framework (IPF) to accelerate the bank’s payments modernisation as it continues to align with the new global ISO 20022 payment data message standards.

Commenting on his appointment, Ian said: “NatWest and Icon have been working collaboratively to modernise payments since 2019. IPF is the payment framework that empowers us to enable change from within and be in control of what we build, so we can deliver new payment services to our customers quickly, safely and cost-efficiently.”

Lee comments: “Our partnership with Icon is key to NatWest’s payments strategy, reflecting our ongoing commitment to investing in and embracing new technologies and capabilities.”

Tom Kelleher, Co-Founder and Commercial Director at Icon, adds: “We are very pleased to welcome Ian and Lee to the Icon Board. Their combined experience and expertise further strengthen our capability to evolve IPF and our services offering to simplify payments transformation.”