PSR governance

The PSR board is led by its chair, Aidene Walsh.

 

The PSR was officially created under the Financial Services (Banking Reform) Act 2013. As an independent economic regulator, we have our own statutory objectives and management structure and board and we are directly accountable to parliament. We became fully operational on 1 April 2015.

The Payment Systems Regulator Limited (PSR) is registered as a limited company in England and Wales No. 8970864. Registered office: 12 Endeavour Square, London, E20 1JN, United Kingdom. The PSR is a fully independent subsidiary of the FCA, but shares some operational services. 

We have adopted and applied the core principles of the Senior Managers Regime. Read more on this here.

The PSR board

The PSR board sets our strategic aims and ensures we meet our statutory objectives. The board is appointed by the FCA with the approval of HM Treasury.

Read our board minutes

Read our board effectiveness review

Read our Conflict of Interests policy for Non-Executive Directors

Executive Director Expenses

Non-Executive Director Expenses

The board

A

Aidene Walsh

Chair of the PSR Board

Chris

Chris Hemsley

Managing Director of the Payment Systems Regulator

Dav

David Geale

Non-executive director of the PSR Board

Tom

Tommaso Valletti

Non-executive director of the PSR Board

Faith Reynolds

Faith Reynolds

Non-executive director of the PSR Board

Simon Ricketts 39K

Simon Ricketts

Non-executive director of the PSR Board

S465 Joanna Whittington 960X640 2 (003)

Joanna Whittington

Non-executive director of the PSR Board

Edward Knapp 01 09 2023

Edward Knapp

Non-executive director of the PSR Board

Lara Stoimenova

Lara Stoimenova

Non-executive director of the PSR Board

Aidene Walsh

Aidene Walsh joined the PSR Board on 1 June 2020 and served as its Interim Chair from 1 April 2022.  On 1 February, the PSR confirmed Aidene had been appointed as the PSR's first, dedicated permanent chair for a term of three years, effective immediately.

She is currently an Executive Director with Banking Competition Remedies Ltd (BCR), the Independent Body established to implement the Alternative Remedies Package of measures agreed between the UK Government and European Commission.  

Prior to joining BCR, she was CEO of The Fairbanking Foundation, a charity supporting organisations to put customer financial well-being at the heart of their propositions. In her 26-year banking career, she held various leadership roles in international and domestic Commercial and Transaction Banking businesses. These included European Transaction Banking in Citigroup and ABN Amro, Global Network Banking in RBS and Merchant Acquiring and Commercial Cards in Lloyds Banking Group. 

Chris Hemsley

Managing Director, Chris Hemsley, joined the PSR in November 2018 as Head of Policy and Strategy. In April, he became co-Managing Director, before being appointed as Managing Director in September 2019.

Chris has extensive experience working for UK regulators. He joined the PSR in November 2018 following his role as Deputy Director of Railway Markets and Economics and Chief Economist at the Office of Rail and Road.

Previously, Chris led the implementation of the UK government’s new support scheme for large-scale renewable electricity generation and before that, led the Civil Aviation Authority’s work on competition and consumer protection.  

 

David Geale

David joined the PSR Board in 2020.

David is the Director of Retail Banking at the Financial Conduct Authority. He is responsible for the supervision of retail banking groups the UK and policy development for retail banking and mortgages. Prior to this role David was the Director of Policy, with responsibility for policy development across a wide range of areas both retail and wholesale, and oversight of the FCA’s Innovation Hub.

David has worked in regulation at the FCA (and its predecessor the FSA) for more than 20 years, spanning several different roles in both Policy and Supervision. During his time at the FCA, he has been involved in leading and delivering a number of large scale initiatives including the Retail Distribution Review, the development of the Senior Managers and Certification regime and implementation of PSD II.

David is a previous Chair of the G20/OECD Task Force on Financial Consumer Protection. Prior to joining the regulator, he worked in the financial services industry for 10 years gaining experience in banking, financial advice and mortgages.

 

Tommaso Valletti

Tommaso Valletti joined the PSR Board in 2020.

He is Professor of Economics at Imperial College Business School, and also Professor of Economics at the University of Rome. He has previously taught at the London School of Economics, Telecom ParisTech/Ecole Polytechnique, and Turin.

He was the Chief Competition Economist of the European Commission (Directorate General for Competition) between 2016 and 2019. He was a board director of Consip, the Italian Public Procurement Agency. He has advised numerous bodies, including the EC, OECD, OFCOM, and the World Bank.

Tommaso’s main research interests are in industrial economics, regulation, and competition economics. He has published numerous articles in academic journals. He has a magna cum laude degree in engineering from Turin and holds a MSc and a PhD in economics from the London School of Economics.

Tommaso also sits on the FCA Board.

Faith Reynolds

Faith Reynolds works in an advisory capacity across a range of fintech, Smart Data and Open Finance initiatives. Faith is a non-executive director for Fair4All Finance which is responsible for promoting financial inclusion through the distribution of dormant assets. Faith is also an independent director for the Current Account Switch Service at Pay.UK.

In addition to these roles, Faith is the Consumer Lead at start-up Amplified Global where she chairs their Governance and Ethics Working Group. She is the Independent Consumer Representative on the Open Banking Implementation Entity Steering Group (until May 2021). Previously, Faith was also a member of the Authorised Push Payment Scams Advisory Group for the Lending Standards Board and the FCA's Financial Services Consumer Panel.

Faith’s term as a member of the PSR Board started with effect from 12 April 2021.

Simon Ricketts

Simon Ricketts has been a non-executive director of the PSR Board since 1 July 2017.

He is also a non-executive director of the HMRC Board, a technology advisor to the Home Office, Chairman of the Independent Assurance Panel for the Emergency Services Communications Programme, a member of the Tricentis Advisory Board and an Honorary Professor at Warwick Business School.

He held executive leadership positions as Chief Information Officer for Rolls Royce PLC, Scottish & Newcastle PLC and Cadbury Schweppes PLC, and a number of non-executive roles within both private and government organisations.

Joanna Whittington

Joanna joined the PSR on 1 September 2023.

She has held a number of different senior roles in the energy and transport sectors and in economic regulation. She is currently an independent Non-Executive Director at SGN, a gas distribution business and she was Director General, Energy and Security at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) from October 2018 to December 2022.

Joanna was the Chief Executive Officer at the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) from January 2016. She joined the ORR in 2014 as Director of Railway Markets and Economics with responsibility for ORR’s economic regulation and competition roles.

Prior to this she worked at Ofgem where she held a number of senior posts. In her last role as Partner for Markets, she was responsible for regulation of the wholesale gas and electricity markets.

Edward Knapp

Edward joined the PSR on 18 September 2023.

He has held a number of non-executive director, board advisor and senior executive roles, with particular expertise in financial services, technology, strategy, risk and transformation.

He is a FTSE 100 non-executive director and Audit Committee member at F&C PLC, and Chair of both the Board Risk and Compliance Committee, and the Board Environmental, Social & Governance Committee for Mattioli Woods PLC, where he also serves on the Audit Committee and Nominations Committee.

He advises a wide range of organisations worldwide, including Perenna in Financial Technology.

Edward is also a member of the UK Endorsement Board, and serves as Chair of the Board Audit Committee and Chair of the Board Investment Committee at Asia House.

He was previously a Managing Director at HSBC Bank PLC, and prior to that a Director at Barclays Bank PLC, both in global roles, particularly focused on risk, technology and transformation. Prior to that he spent many years at McKinsey & Company advising clients worldwide.

Lara Stoimenova

Lara joined the PSR on 7 March 2024.

Lara is a competition and regulatory economist with over 20 years’ experience. She is the founder of Sigma Economics, a boutique strategy and economics consulting firm. She is also a non-executive member on the boards of the Jersey Competition Regulatory Authority and Portsmouth Water, where she also chairs their Audit and Risk Committees.

Prior to setting up her own company Lara was a partner at Flint Global, where she set up their Competition and Regulatory practice. She also worked in senior roles at Ofcom (the UK communications regulator) and the CMA (the UK competition authority).

Lara is a trustee at Reform think-tank, dedicated to improving public services in the UK.