HSBC has hired ex-Google engineering director Mike Warriner to lead the bank’s tech and digital efforts

HSBC is tapping up talent from tech companies to give it a leg up in an increasingly digital world with the hire of a former Google engineer.

Mike Warriner, who was the director of engineering at the tech company in the UK for the past five years, has been named chief information officer at the bank covering its retail banking and digital wealth management parts of the business.

Read more: HSBC’s taking on challengers and rivals with an innovative new app

He was also in charge of Google’s payments business across Europe and before Google, the Cambridge computer science graduate was the technology chief at UK software firm Intelligent Environments for almost two decades.

“HSBC is an amazing brand, has great products and a highly capable global technology team,” said Warriner, who will report to the global CIO for those parts of the business, Ganesh Balasubramanian.

“But even the strongest can’t sit still and the market is moving rapidly with new entrants taking advantage of mobile, artificial intelligence, chat bots and agile development. I am confident that together we can build the best products in the market – relevant, innovative, and exciting and a great experience for our customers.”

Read more: HSBC’s partnering with a fintech startup in its latest Open Banking push

HSBC’s most recent foray into digital is the launch of a new app, Beta, that will prepare it for Open Banking, with users able to aggregate accounts from other banks. It is spending more than $2bn globally to modernise the business.