Our Team

Brian studied at Trinity College, Dublin and at St Patrick’s College Maynooth.

Brian served as a member of both houses of the Irish Parliament from 1996 to 2014. In 2011 he was appointed as Minister of State at the Department of Finance. During his time as Minister of State, Brian attended Eurogroup, ECOFIN and Budgetary Council meetings on behalf of the Irish Government. He also led on the issues of procurement and public sector reform.

Following his election to the European Parliament in May 2014 Brian was appointed to the European Parliaments Economic & Monetary Affairs (ECON) Committee, and also elected as Vice President of ECON. He was the Vice Coordinator of Econ for the European People’s Party.

Brian was the European Parliaments rapporteur for the IORPS II Directive and shadow rapporteur for the Money Market Funds regulation and the Pan European Pension Proposal (PEPP). He also worked on the EPs first ever report on Fintech and on the subject of Third Country Equivalence.

In 2019 Brian was appointed as CEO of the Banking and Payments Federation of Ireland. He also serves on the board of the European Banking Federation.

Ann Smith joined BPFI in late 2016 as Director Corporate Services. She has responsibility for financial management, corporate governance, people management and facilities within BPFI and its related entities.

Before moving to BPFI, Ann worked with Chartered Accountants Ireland for 20 years in a variety of education, regulatory and financial roles. Ann trained and worked in Butler Chance & Co/Touche Ross before moving to Irish Life Building Society as financial accountant.

Ann is a Chartered Accountant and fellow of Chartered Accountants Ireland.

Richard joined BPFI in 2017 as Head of Digital and Payments working to formulate positions and responses to Digital and Payment policy and regulation at national, EU, and international level.

Before joining BPFI, Richard was CEO for FinTech & Payments Association of Ireland (FPAI) and managed the merger of the association into BPFI. In the years prior to this Richard provided consultancy in the development of digital commerce strategies for companies such as RBS/NatWest, Telefónica Group, Bank of Ireland, Monitise and Three Ireland.

Richard has a degree in Mathematics from Trinity College Dublin.

Dr Ali Uğur joined the organisation in 2008 and in his current role as Chief Economist is responsible for economic research and commentary within BPFI as well as supervision and regulation files while representing BPFI at the European Banking Federation at high level working groups including SSM Steering Committee and Banking Supervision Committee.

Ali graduated with an economics degree from the Middle East Technical University in Turkey followed by a PhD in economics from Trinity College Dublin in 2003. He started his career as a post graduate researcher and lecturer in the Economics Department in TCD. Ali then joined Forfás as an economist working for the National Competitiveness Council and subsequently became a manager in the enterprise surveys and evaluations department in Forfás. Prior to joining BPFI, Ali was an economist at the Office of the Revenue Commissioners.