Big interview
From bricks to clicks
Every CIO has big plans when they take on a new job – but Scott Marcar probably has more on his plate than most. As NatWest’s top information bod since September last year, he’s had to contend with everything from new acquisitions to a rapidly shrinking pool of physical stores. But beyond fi ghting fi res, this veteran of JP Morgan and Deutsche Bank hopes to use new technology to fundamentally transform how the British giant operates. As Andrea Valentino fi nds out, there’s certainly plenty to be getting on with.
E
urope’s financial titans have rarely enjoyed simple births. Rather, they tend to emerge from the rubble of economic history. From building societies, mutual aid and banks, their heritages grasp back into a lost age of sudden mergers and tricorn hats. Yet even on a continent of BBVAs and HSBCs – both built from a wheelbarrow of acquisitions and buy-outs – NatWest must surely have the most sweeping story of all. Though it was finally launched in 1970, NatWest originally encompassed some 200 institutions, scattered like stray pennies across England and Wales. This breadth is matched by depth. The first bank that can plausibly be linked to NatWest was launched in 1658, when Oliver Cromwell was still alive. Some 350 years later, in 2007, it was part of the consortium that acquired Dutch giant ABN Amro. To put it another way, NatWest has weaved itself into the blanket of British life for almost as long as modern banking has existed. And now this most supple of institutions is shifting once more – this time perhaps transcending the High Street altogether. Last October, staff announced the closure of 43 branches, in towns and cities from Lewes to Edinburgh. With an additional 23 expected closures in 2023, it seems obvious that NatWest is changing just as rapidly as its pre-modern forebears. Anyway, that’s the impression you get talking to the bank’s senior executives. “The scope, the scale, the size of the organisation is on a completely different order of magnitude to where it used to be,” says Scott Marcar, the CIO at NatWest since last year. “As the world digitises, it comes with a completely new ecosystem.” And if NatWest is changing, moreover, its leaders must too. Nowhere is this clearer than in the person of Marcar himself. For if the Britain of Oliver Cromwell had scant need for chief information officers, the sector of 2023 is replete with hackers, fraudsters and regular customers just trying to access their cash. That, in turn, forces Marcar and his colleagues to fundamentally rethink
8 Future Banking /
www.nsbanking.com
NatWest
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