Ohpen announces expansion of the senior UK team

By Joy Dumasia

Ohpen, the first FinTech platform to bring a bank to the cloud, announces the expansion of its UK team, including the appointment of Ahmed Michla as the Head of Business Development and Phil Bourne as Head of Product in the UK and Ireland, highlighting the company’s continued commitment to the UK market.

Ahmed brings over two decades’ experience in the financial services space, bringing extensive expertise in delivering significant organisational change. He has worked with several financial services institutions driving the delivery of core solutions from concept to production, aiming to streamline processes across the mortgage, savings and asset finance sectors. Prior to Ohpen, Ahmed held positions at Sopra Banking Software and Sopra Group.

The appointment follows the hire of Jerry Mulle as UK MD and bolsters Ohpen’s ability to bring Ohpen’s serverless, microservices-based solutions to all types of UK financial institutions, from lenders and building societies to pension providers. With a continued firm focus on the mortgages proposition, the UK team will enable FIs to harness Ohpen’s one-of-a-kind platform to free them from legacy systems and embrace true digitisation.

Further adding to the senior leadership team in the UK, Phil joins Ohpen following a career working with the UK and Ireland’s leading building societies and specialist lenders. Phil’s primary focus will be on secured lending across the full value chain, starting at purchasing a property and leading to loan redemption.

Matthijs Aler, CEO of Ohpen, said: “The growth of the UK team comes at a perfect time. Our technology has been disrupting banking in the Netherlands for years, and now it’s time to liberate financial institutions from the burdensome legacy software across the channel, too. We are staunch believers that great people make great solutions. With the addition of Ahmed and Phil, we have an expert team equipped with the best technology to provide a range of building societies, lenders and brokers with the specialised software tools to improve efficiencies and ultimately modernise the UK mortgages market.”

“Ohpen’s growing commitment, vision and fresh thinking for the UK market is refreshing and something I wanted to be a part of. We’ve needed true technological innovation in the mortgages space for a long time, and is something I truly believe Ohpen can deliver on,” said Ahmed on his appointment.