Allica Bank promotes Ravneet Shah to chief technical officer

Former VP of engineering takes over following Allica’s £600m AIB loan book purchase.

Challenger SME lender Allica Bank has promoted from within to find its new chief technical officer, Ravneet Shah.

Formerly the bank’s VP of engineering, Shah joined Allica from Santander in 2020 as a lead integration engineer just after Allica’s banking licence was granted.

During her time there she’s led the build and delivery of the bank’s online portal, and led the move of Allica’s architecture to microservices.

Her promotion comes after Allica recently acquired AIB’s £600m SME lending portfolio, and plans to launch a business rewards account later this year.

“I started my career developing code to record temperature readings, I’ve enjoyed the journey I’ve been on to get here, and am proud to be starting my new challenge of leading the technology function for Allica as it goes on its mission to reimagine relationship banking for SMEs,” said Shah on her appointment.

First up on Shah’s key priorities will be migrating AIB’s SME customers over to Allica’s systems, and supporting the abovementioned rewards account.

Allica says the CTO will continue to lead on building the bank’s software, tailored to serving its SME customers.

“Ravneet has been fundamental to developing Allica’s proprietary software and her efforts have rightly earned her respect and admiration across the bank and the wider industry,” said CEO Richard Davies.

“Ravneet’s promotion is thoroughly deserved. We are delighted to be able to benefit from her skills and experience as we continue on our quest to become the leading SME challenger bank for the decade ahead.”