Our Team

Brian is the CEO of BPFI since 2019 – the voice of the Banking, Payments and FinTech industry in Ireland. He is also a board member of the European Banking Federation (EBF) and chairs the EBF strategy group on combatting financial crime.  

From 2014-2019 Brian was an MEP for Dublin and served as Vice Chair of ECON. He was responsible as lead EPP MEP for Money Market Reforms, Pan European Pension Proposal, IOR2, Equivalence Own Initiative Report and the first European Parliament’s report on developing fintech. 

Before serving in the European Parliament, Brian was a TD and Deputy Irish Finance Minister from 2011-2014. During the Irish Presidency of the EU in 2013, Brian worked closely on FS related files and attended Eurogroup and Ecofin meetings on behalf of the Irish Government. He also had responsibility, during his time in Government, on parts of Irish public sector reform, developing shared services and better procurement. He studied at Trinity College Dublin and Maynooth University.  

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.