SWIFT Appoints Executive To Head New Business Development

SWIFT appointed Johan Kestens as Head of New Business Development and Member of the Executive Committee, effective December 3, 2001. He will also be lead executive for the SWIFT Board's "e" Committee. Kestens comes to SWIFT from Almanij, one of

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SWIFT appointed Johan Kestens as Head of New Business Development and Member of the Executive Committee, effective December 3, 2001. He will also be lead executive for the SWIFT Board’s “e” Committee.

Kestens comes to SWIFT from Almanij, one of Belgium’s largest financial holdings companies, where he was responsible for strategy and development. Prior to that he was a partner at management consultancy McKinsey & Company, where he co-founded their European electronic payments practice.

In his new position, Kestens will focus on taking SWIFT beyond its core, pursuing new business opportunities in the e-commerce space. He will initially focus on SWIFT’s e-paymentsPlus service and TrustAct messaging, as well as its venture relationships with bolero.net and Identrus. Kestens will build on these activities to create an infrastructure for successful e-commerce by SWIFT’s member-community and their customers.

Commenting on the appointment, SWIFT CEO Leonard H. Schrank said: “Our e-activities need full time executive focus. Johan is a seasoned executive and will be a welcome addition to our SWIFT team. At the same time Johan will also work closely with our other “core” executives to ensure the needs of our payments and securities markets are well understood and met.”

Kestens is currently a member of the boards of several e-commerce and internet ventures, including The Reference, a leading e-solutions developer in Belgium, Xca, a provider of context sensitive XML-driven web tools, and Venture Bay, an internet incubator. He holds an MBA from the Vlerick-Leuven School of Management at Ghent University and a Master of Science in Electronics Engineering from the same University. Kestens is Belgian and married with two children.