Paula da Silva, head of transaction services at SEB, has been named as the new chief executive of the Nordics prospective payments platform (P27).
The board of P27 has appointed da Silva as new CEO, replacing Lars Sjögren, who had held the position since January 2019.
“Paula is bringing a long track record of successful transformation journeys as well as deep knowledge and vast experience in the payments, cash management and transaction banking area,” said Martin Anderson, P27’s chairperson.
This will serve the phase of transforming P27 into a solid company under supervisory scrutiny, with a respected place in the financial system of the Nordic countries, he noted, continuing that Sjögren had parted ways with the company on a mutual basis.
Da Silva will start on January 17, 2022, while Claus Richter, deputy CEO of P27, will take the interim CEO role immediately until da Silva joins.
Da Silva is departing the position of head of transaction services at SEB and has a lengthy history with the financial institution, having begun working there in 1988 in its Brazil subsidiary.
She has also previously served as P27 chairperson between 2019 and the start of this year, and was also a board member at Bankgirot, the interbank clearing company that was recently acquired by P27.
P27 so far
The P27 initiative, named after the 27m citizens of the countries in the Nordics, is a collaboration between six of the region’s largest banks: Danske Bank; Handelsbanken; Nordea; OP Financial Group; SEB; and Swedbank.
The project started in late 2018 and has been running since 2019 as a company that the founding banks own jointly. Its task has been to design and plan a pan-Nordic, multi-currency domestic and cross-border payments platform.
In June 2019, it made the announcement that it was working in partnership with Mastercard to deliver the initiative. Mastercard will design, build and run the new platform as a managed service.
In July this year, it received merger approval from the European Commission; however, it has also faced criticism from Nordic regulators, with one Riksbank official telling a conference in April that the cross-border payments vehicle has a lot of momentum but that has not resulted in actual progress.
The payments initiative has also faced the challenge of Norway not participating in the project, having withdrawn in 2019. In October last year, outgoing Sjögren said: “Norway was a driving force before deciding to step out. From our side I don’t really understand why Norway is on the outside, to be honest. It would be rational for them to do this with us, and we keep inviting them back into the P27 family.”