TSB CIO exits as Santander integration advances
TSB’s chief information officer, Cheryl McCuaig, has left and will hand over responsibilities to Santander UK’s CIO as the bank begins integration with its acquirer.
Cheryl McCuaig, TSB’s chief information officer, has left the bank and will transfer responsibilities to Santander UK’s chief information officer as the lender integrates with its acquirer. TSB also eliminated the roles of chief risk officer, chief people officer and director of communications and corporate affairs.
Santander completed its £2.65bn acquisition of TSB in April after the deal was first proposed in July 2025. TSB confirmed handovers are under way and is preparing for a Part VII banking transfer. The bank plans to begin transferring some employees to Santander UK from the start of October, with the rest of the business expected to follow in early 2027.
Nicola Bannister, TSB’s chief executive, described the departing executives as “playing crucial roles in the [executive committee] in recent years, helping to deliver record TSB performances and putting us in the strongest possible position ahead of integration with Santander.” TSB added that transitions are being managed in an orderly way.
McCuaig began her career at HSBC and held senior technology and leadership roles at JP Morgan, Credit Suisse, Barclays, Lloyds Banking Group and Metro Bank. Her exit is part of a wider reshuffle as Santander moves to standardise technology and operations across the combined group.
Santander has indicated it intends to migrate acquired customers onto its Partenon core banking platform to create a single view of customers and reduce operating complexity. The bank previously used Partenon after acquiring Abbey, Alliance & Leicester and Bradford & Bingley.
Core system migrations carry operational risk. In 2018, TSB’s migration to a UK version of Sabadell’s Proteo4UK system left many customers unable to access accounts, caused transactions to appear missing and exposed some customers to other people’s account information. The issues continued for months. Regulators fined TSB nearly £50m and the bank paid about £32.7m in customer redress. A former TSB CIO was fined £81,620 for breaching conduct rules related to outsourcing oversight.
TSB did not provide a timetable for when customers will be moved to Santander systems or whether the TSB brand will be retained. Decisions on customer migration and final brand arrangements remain under review as integration planning continues.
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