Mufarrige to lead FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection

January 24, 2025 2:14 PM

In this week's banking news roundup: Christopher Mufarrige is named acting director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection; TD Bank promotes Andrew Stewart, Nadir Johnes and Jo Jagadish; PayPal's John Kim is leaving the company; and more.

Mufarrige named acting director of consumer protection at FTC

Christopher Mufarrige, chief of staff and attorney advisor to Federal Trade Commissioner Melissa Holyoak, has been named acting director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection.

Mufarrige steps into a significant role at the FTC, where he will manage a team of more than 400 attorneys and support staff. He inherits hundreds of investigations that reflect the priorities of the prior Democratic administration.

"Chris is a public servant with the intellect and personal skills to run the Bureau of Consumer Protection," said Eric Mogilnicki, a partner at the law firm Covington & Burling.

Mufarrige previously was an assistant general counsel and director at Marqeta, an Oakland, Calif.-based tech company, and was a senior in-house counsel at TechGC. He has been a senior counsel at the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, an associate at the law firm Wilson Sonsini and an attorney advisor at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. —Kate Berry

TD Bank promotes three executives in U.S. consumer bank

TD Bank has promoted three executives at its U.S. consumer bank, the Canadian financial institution said Wednesday in a LinkedIn post. Andrew Stuart was promoted to head of consumer deposit and payment products, Nadir Jones is now the head of TD auto finance, and Jo Jagadish is head of digital banking and contact centers.

Last July, Jagadish was chosen as one of American Banker's The Most Powerful Women in Banking: Next honorees. The list honors women 40 years and younger who have been nominated by executives at their institutions who they believe have the potential to rise to the C-suite. Jagadish joined TD in 2020 and led the commercial corporate products and services portfolio before expanding her efforts to lead digital banking in the U.S. —Mary Ellen Egan

PayPal’s chief product officer to depart company

PayPal will be parting ways with its chief product officer at the end of March, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

John Kim, who has served as executive vice president and CPO for the last two-and-a-half years, will depart the payments giant on March 31. His successor was not named in the filing, and PayPal did not respond to requests for comment.

Kim joined PayPal in September 2022 from online travel agency Expedia, where he was president of Expedia Marketplace overseeing strategy, product, technology and operations for all of Expedia Group's business lines. —Joey Pizzolato

Scienaptic AI CUSO secures four new investment partners

Scienaptic AI, a New York-based fintech credit underwriting company, said its credit union service organization, or CUSO, secured "strategic equity investments" from four new partners. The three credit unions that joined the coalition are Alliance Catholic Credit Union, Partner Colorado Credit Union and Advantage One Credit Union; the fourth investment partner was the Michigan Credit Union League.

These credit unions joined Scienaptic AI's CUSO to "leverage AI to personalize loan solutions, expand access to credit and drive risk management excellence," according to a joint statement from the CEOs of the three new credit union clients.

The $3.9 trillion-asset fintech processes more than 3 million credit decisions each month using its AI-powered machine learning tools to analyze large amounts of data and make efficient underwriting decisions. —Melinda Huspen

Orrstown Bank hires COO, chief information officer

Orrstown Bank of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, has expanded its leadership team by hiring a chief operations officer and a chief information officer.

As COO, Ben Colvard will oversee the bank's operational strategy and ensure the proper alignment of people, processes and technology, the bank said in a Jan. 16 press release. "With over 20 years of experience in operational excellence, Ben previously served as Chief Optimization Officer at Sandy Spring Bank," Orrstown Bank said.

Chris Orr, the chief information officer, also comes from Sandy Spring Bank. Orr will lead Orrstown Bank's technology strategy.

The two will report to Amy Doll, who is executive vice president, chief operations and technology officer. Doll joined the bank in July 2024, when PeoplesBank merged into Orrstown Bank.

"These roles represent strategic expansions of existing leadership functions, aimed at positioning the bank for sustained growth and operational excellence," a spokesperson for the bank said.

Orrstown Bank is a wholly owned unit of Nasdaq-listed Orrstown Financial Services. —Mary de Wet