Link Scheme Holdings Ltd is a company limited by guarantee. The Members of the company are the companies that issue cards used in ATMs and provide ATMs and cash at the till terminals.
Link Scheme Holdings Ltd is regulated by the Bank of England and the Payment Systems Regulator.
The Link Scheme Holdings Ltd Board comprises a Chair, six Non-Executive Directors and the Chief Executive. The current members are:
Director and Chair
Director and Chair
Sir Mark Boleat – Director and Chair. Sir Mark Boleat is Chair of Link Scheme Holdings Ltd. He is also Vice Chair of the Advisory Council of the International Business and Diplomatic Exchange. He has previously been the Chair of the City of London’s Policy and Resources Committee, and in this capacity was also Deputy Chair of TheCityUK (the promotional body for the UK finance industry) and the International Regulatory Strategy Group, a Vice Chair of London Councils and a Board Member of London and Partners. He has also chaired the Housing and Finance Institute and the Board of Governors of the City of London Academy Highbury Grove.
Sir Mark has been chief executive of three major trade associations: the Building Societies Association, the Council of Mortgage Lenders and the Association of British Insurers. More recently he has held a number of commercial, public sector and charity positions. He has been Chair of the Jersey Development Company, Andium Homes and the Channel Islands Competition and Regulatory Authorities, a director of four insurance companies and two listed companies (Comino and Countryside Properties) and a member of the National Consumer Council, the Regulatory Policy Committee and the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission. He has also run his own consultancy business, working for international agencies on housing finance and for corporates and public sector bodies on regulation, public policy and trade association structures and organisation. He has been Chair of two charities and a governor of three schools. Mark was awarded a knighthood for services to the financial services industry and local government in London in June 2017.
(Senior Non-Executive Director)
(Senior Non-Executive Director)
Lord Hunt is Chairman of the Financial Services Division of the international commercial law firm DAC Beachcroft LLP, where he has been a partner since 1969. He has been a parliamentarian for over 40 years, first as MP for Wirral, then Wirral West, from 1976-1997, subsequently as a life peer. He was a Minister in successive Governments for 16 years and a member of the Cabinets of both Margaret Thatcher and John Major. He is the current Chairman of the Association of Conservative Peers. In addition to his role as Senior Independent Non-Executive Director of Link Scheme Holdings Ltd, he is immediate past Chairman of the British Insurance Brokers' Association and is an independent non-executive director of Global Risk Partners Limited. He became Chairman of the Press Complaints Commission in 2011 and established the new Independent Press Standards Organisation, serving as its inaugural chairman until 2014.
(Non-Executive Director)
(Non-Executive Director)
In addition to his role at Link Scheme Holdings Ltd as a Non-Executive Director and Chair of the Risk Committee, John is a Non-Executive director and Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee for Quilter Plc’s platform business and is a Non-Executive Director and Chair of the Risk Committee for Chetwood Financial, the digital bank.
John spent 31 years with Standard Life in a variety of senior executive and board roles. From 2010 to 2017 he was Chief Risk Officer of Standard Life’s insurance, pensions and savings businesses in UK and Europe. Prior to this his roles included Managing Director, Customer Operations, Managing Director, Finance and Chief Executive and Finance Director of Standard Life Bank.
He was previously a Non Executive Director of Scottish Financial Enterprise.
He qualified as a Fellow of the Faculty of Actuaries in 1990 and graduated in Mathematics at the University of Edinburgh.
(Non-Executive Director)
(Non-Executive Director)
Tracey Graham is a portfolio Non Executive Director, on the Boards of Close Brothers plc (Merchant Banking), discover IE plc (Electronics), Ibstock plc (Building Supplies) and Nationwide Building Society. Tracey was Chief Executive of Talaris Limited having led a Management buyout in 2008 from De La Rue plc. She has also held senior positions in banking and insurance with HSBC and AXA Insurance.
(Non-Executive Director)
(Non-Executive Director)
Bill is a career banker having spent over 30 years with RBS Group where he was part of the wider Group Executive team. Bill undertook various roles, principally in Operations and Customer Service, where he was Director of Operations for the RBS cards business and Managing Director of TRACKER (Network) UK Limited. Bill has also worked overseas in Jersey and Gibraltar, helping create RBS International. Bill helped establish Tesco Bank’s insurance business as Director Insurance Operations and was part of the Tesco Executive team. Latterly Bill was Chief Operating Officer of YourCash Europe Limited, an independent ATM deployer operating ATM’s across Europe..
Bill is a Chartered Banker and Fellow of the Institute of Bankers in Scotland and a previous winner of the Institute's Bisland prize. Bill holds an MBA with Distinction from the University of Strathclyde.
Bill’s appointment to the LINK Board is his first Non-Executive role.
(Non-Executive Director)
(Non-Executive Director)
David Rigney is a Non-Executive Director of Link Scheme Holdings Ltd and Chair of the LINK Audit Committee. In addition, David has considerable experience as an Executive and Non-Executive Director and is a qualified accountant. He was a main Board Executive Director at Nationwide Building Society, part of David's responsibilities at Nationwide covered Payments including the ATM network. David was also previously Chairman of BACS. He has also held Non-Executive Director roles in Central Government and in the Energy, Financial Services and Sport sectors.
David has a MBA from Manchester Business School and a MA in Sports History from De Montfort University.
(Non-Executive Director)
(Non-Executive Director)
In addition to his role at LINK Chris Chris is Managing Director of Ireland & Senior Partner BOI at Kyndryl and Chairman of DVCP. With over 30 years banking and financial services experience his background includes consulting, IBM and KPMG, coupled with a broad range of Financial Institution executive roles including being Executive Director & COO at The Co-operative Bank and holding COO/CIO roles at Williams & Glyn, Ulster Bank and RBS Corporate Bank.
Chris is a Certified Bank Director, SMF accredited and was also a Non-Executive Director at Chetwood Financial.
Chief Executive
Chief Executive
John is CEO of the LINK Scheme, the UK's cash machine network and Link Scheme Holdings Ltd. He is also a member of LINK’s Consumer Council and a Non-Executive Director and Chair of the Risk Committee of MedCo, the medical report system. Previous roles include member of the UK Executive Board of Capgemini Consulting, as lead for the Department for Work and Pensions advisory business, plus a number of major local government transformations. His early career was with Gemini Consulting’s financial services strategy practice and Lloyds Bank. John has a first degree in Materials Science from Keble College, Oxford and an MBA with Distinction from London Business School. He is also an Associate of the Chartered Institute of Bankers.
The Board has an Audit Committee, chaired by David Rigney, a Risk Committee chaired by John Gill and a Remuneration and Nominations Committee, chaired by Lord Hunt.
The Board has established the LINK Consumer Council, chaired by Tracey Graham, comprising representatives of LINK Network Members and independent consumer representatives.
Responsibility for major decisions, including the Rules of the LINK Scheme and setting the Interchange fees, rests with the Board.
The LINK executive team comprises –
The companies
The Operator (as defined in the Banking Act) of the LINK Scheme is Link Scheme Holdings Ltd, a company limited by guarantee (company number 10535808). For historic reasons some of the contractual arrangements rest with a separate company, Link Scheme Ltd (company number 08774124), a company limited by shares, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Link Scheme Holdings Ltd. In practice, the two companies operate as a single entity each with same Board of Directors and the same Executive Team.
Responsibilities of Network Members and of the Board
The Network Members of the Scheme commit to a Members’ Agreement, which sets out the rules of the Scheme and responsibility for taking decisions, and a Switching and Settlement Agreement, which governs the mechanics of the Scheme and to which the infrastructure provider, Vocalink, is also a party.
The Board publishes an Annual Report and Annual Statutory Accounts.
The Board and the Network Members have a Policy on the publication of minutes of meetings. All the relevant minutes are available here.
Audit Committee
The Terms of Reference of the Audit Committee are here.
The Audit Committee currently comprises –
Remuneration and Nominations Committee
The terms of Reference of the Remuneration and Nominations Committee are here.
The Remuneration and Nominations Committee currently comprises –
Risk Committee
The terms of Reference of the Risk Committee are here.
The Risk Committee currently comprises –
LINK Consumer Council
The Terms of Reference of the Consumer Council are here.
Its Chair is Tracey Graham.
Find out more about the work of the Consumer Council and read its Annual Report here.
