HSBC hires former Barclays CIO Darryl West

West will be HSBC's group CIO and report into group COO Andy Maguire

HSBC has confirmed that former Barclays CIO Darryl West is the company's new group chief information officer.

West had been director of IT at Lloyds Banking Group before jumping ship to Barclays in 2013. A Barclays spokesperson told Computing that West had left his role as CIO of Barclays in December 2014. The company's interim CIO is Ian Buchanan, who will report into Barclays chief operations and technology officer Michael Harte. The spokesperson said the firm is on the hunt for a new CIO but said that they did not know "the ins and outs of the recruitment process" at this stage.

In a statement, HSBC said: "Darryl is based in London and reports directly to group chief operating officer Andy Maguire.

"He has more than 30 years' experience in financial services in Australia, France, Germany, the US and the UK."

According to efinancialcareers, an internal memo sent to employees at HSBC, West will be looking to transform technology into a "flexible function with strong commercial awareness".

This would mean merging the IT, operations and software delivery functions into one "group-wide IT organisation", it said.

West has been known to transform the way an organisation works in tandem with the IT department. According to Bloomberg, he played a leading role in the integration of Lloyds TSB and Halifax Bank of Scotland (HBOS), and at Barclays he was responsible for consolidating and leading Barclay's technology services, testing utilities and shared applications development.

Prior to joining Lloyds, he held various IT and business management positions in the financial services sector including a lengthy stay at JPMorgan Chase, and stints at Accenture and the National Australia Group (Europe).