Big interview
is barrelling ahead once more. Bucking the industry trend, for instance, Metro Bank is actually opening brick-and-mortar shops, notably 11 new branches in the north of England from next year.
As Hussain himself epitomises, meanwhile, none of these varied transformations could exist without technology. Beyond the firm’s headline advances, that’s apparent across any number of Metro Bank initiatives, from lending to customer service to data management. And if all those all showcase Hussain as much more than merely another IT bod, the executive is now rushing in even more varied directions, not least when it comes to collaboration. The bridge between technical theory and practical improvements across Metro Bank, his role is increasingly social, requiring him to understand the disparate needs of staff and consumers alike. That’s doubly true given his institution’s outside partnerships: from major tech firms to ambitious young startups, Hussain is there to guide them to the Metro Bank stable. And though his tenure as joint CIO/CTO has just begun, he has already started honing the next generation of Metro Bank executives, whatever mix of acronyms they may finally accrue.
Double vision Viewed in a certain light, Hussain’s whole life has involved a series of double jobs. Not, of course, that he’s ever been a CIO/CTO before. But viewed in the context of a bewilderingly varied career, his current balancing act suddenly seems far less implausible. An engineer by trade, he first worked at Unilever, learning about logistics and finance at one of the world’s great multinationals. Next, Hussain returned to his student passion, becoming an engineer on “very technical” railway projects along the West Coast Main Line. Then the pendulum swung once more, with the executive taking on a range of tech projects with the BBC and Virgin Media. He finally entered banking in 2009, working as a payments specialist at Lloyds before finally joining Metro Bank a decade later. To put it differently, this is clearly a chief information officer with a background in far more than IT – just as well given his remit now extends well beyond ones and zeros. As Hussain explains, tech has never been an end in itself, but is rather a vehicle towards bolstering bottom lines and customer service. “I think it breaks a few barriers by bringing it together,” is how he puts it. “I think it makes it broader which is more challenging, because I get the opportunity to get a lot closer to my business partners. But I also get the opportunity to deep dive into tech all the time.” With that in mind, Hussain suggests he transcends the traditional CIO role, arguing instead that “operator” (“you have to deliver service”) and “catalyst” (“how do I help the business have better ideas?”) are just two of the ways to appreciate his position.
Future Banking /
www.nsbanking.com
This philosophy certainly makes sense: there’s a reason a Naviste poll found that 83% of CIOs have taken on additional responsibilities since the pandemic. Even so, it’d be wrong to discount the immense power of the technology itself. Barely a decade ago, Hussain recalls that data and APIs were the twin industry watchwords. Since then, they’ve been superseded by the cloud and automation, with recent work by Accenture suggesting that banks have already moved 15% of their workloads off physical servers. In a similar vein, that’s reflected by how Metro Bank has changed in the real world. As far back as 2017, for instance, managers developed a single operational data store, allowing staff to learn how customers interact with them by phone, online or in person. That’s shadowed by more recent innovations: in July, the bank upgraded its mortgage platform, allowing intermediaries to request day-one valuations in more cases.
Talk the tech
Ask a layman what they think a CIO job involves and they may well imagine a rather lonely existence, forming images of hunched, solitary figures with only computers for friends. Yet speak to Hussain and this stereotype quickly becomes untenable. As a joint CIO/ CTO, after all, he’s obliged to understand both IT – and the way it shapes the day-to-day operations across Metro Bank. And for that to happen, he seems to be in constant dialogue with stakeholders both big and small. To explain what he means, Hussain describes his relationship with Metro Bank’s call centre. Emphasising that he physically travels to spend time with staff, he ends up appreciating their issues “much more closely” than he would closeted in his office, a natural priority for any chief transformation officer. At this stage, Hussain’s CIO title takes precedence. Armed with an intimate understanding of the bank’s needs, he can now talk to tech suppliers and demand solutions. “They’ll come and pitch AWS connect to
Above: Metro Bank is Britain’s first new high street bank to have been launched in more than 150 years.
Opposite page: Faisal Hussain has taken on twin roles at Metro Bank: chief information officer and that of chief transformation officer.
15% Accenture 11 Bloomberg 9
The percentage of their workload that banks have currently moved to the cloud, a figure expected to rise significantly in future.
The number of new ‘stores’ Metro Bank plans to open across the north of England from 2024.
Metro Bank
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