Bank of England’s head of fintech leaves for crypto career

After more than 13 years at the Bank of England, the head of the bank’s fintech hub Varun Paul is leaving to take on a role at Fireblocks.

Having worked in a number of roles at the company since joining in 2008, and just over a year in his latest, Paul is joining the crypto platform in an unspecified position.

Used by institutions to quickly and securely move funds, Fireblocks streamlines operations by bringing together exchanges, OTCs, counterparties, hot wallets and custodians in one platform.

“Today was an emotional day! 16 years after starting my first internship and more than 13 years after starting as a graduate, today I’ve parted ways with the Bank of England,” Paul wrote in a LinkedIn post.

“I have loved my time here - because of the great people and the varied and incredibly rewarding work. And because I’ve been given the space to drive forward the agenda on the things I’m passionate about.”

Paul joins a growing list of senior figures moving from traditional finance to roles at startups and crypto firms.

Last month, Revolut’s chief revenue officer Alan Chang left to found his own web3 startup, now revealed to be called Tesseract, and the co-heads of digital assets at Citi Group left to launch their own crypto company, Motus Capital Management.

In January, the head of the London Metal Exchange Matthew Chamberlain quit to join crypto startup Komainu.

Meanwhile, two former Financial Conduct Authority employees jumped into roles in crypto at Bitpanda and Zodia in the last 18 months.

Since launching out of stealth mode in 2019 with $16m Series A, Fireblocks has surpassed $2trillion in assets transferred and raised $1bn in total, bringing its valuation to $8bn.

According to the company, this makes it the highest-valued digital asset infrastructure provider in the world.

It says its mission is to “enabl[e] every business to easily and securely support digital assets and cryptocurrencies”.