Otto Benz

Director of Payments for Nationwide Building Society since March 2021 - is responsible for payments operations, strategy and change for the society, delivering valuable and resilient payments experiences to its members, as well as influencing the UK payments industry.

Previously Otto held the role of Payments Technical Service Director at Lloyds Banking Group, where he was responsible for industry and supplier relationships, payments strategy, liquidity, resilience, security and key programs of renewal for payments infrastructure across the Group.

Otto is a graduate of Queens College Cambridge, where he studied engineering. Since graduation, Otto developed his career at IBM, Swiss Bank, Accenture and Virgin Money. Over that time, he has worked extensively in programs of change and IT and has had leading roles in strategy engagements and operations. He has wide experience in financial services, working mainly in retail and investment banking, focussing on payments, clearing and settlement.

Otto has been responsible for the architecture and implementation of domestic, international and card payments systems, and has worked in issuing, acquiring and central agency and utility organizations, as well as banks and other retail lenders. Otto has been a Director of BACS and Payments UK, and sat on the Strategy Forum of the Payments Systems Regulator, where he co-chaired the workstream in charge of creating the vision for the New Payments Architecture.