Barclays poaches Lloyds’ group CIO to lead technology

Barclays has swooped on the most senior technologist at Lloyds Banking Group in a move that signals its intent to continue to bolster its IT headcount.

Darryl West, group chief information officer at Lloyds Banking Group, is due to leave the bank in November for Barclays, where he will also be group CIO, according to sources close to the situation.

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West has been with Lloyds since 2005, and was promoted to group CIO in 2006. He has been instrumental in managing the technology merger after Lloyds acquired HBOS in 2009, which was one of the largest and most complex financial services IT integration projects. However, more recently Lloyds has been associated with scaling back its technology headcount and rationalising its IT infrastructure.

Barclays, meanwhile, has been among the most active IT recruiters in the City, according to headhunters, and recently installed Shaygan Kheradpir as its new head of operations and technology. It also hired long-standing J.P. Morgan technology managing director, Kritika Shekar, as head of Asia enterprise solutions technology in August.

West spent much of his career before Lloyds at J.P. Morgan, but also worked at National Australia Group’s European operation. He has a degree in Commerce and Computer Science from Deakin University in Australia.

This is also not the first time that his head has allegedly been turned by a new opportunity. In 2011, Lloyds was required to deny rumours that he was set to join Hewlett Packard.

Lloyds declined to comment on the move, while Barclays didn’t respond to requests for comment.