Latest banking news

Barclays' U.S. consumer bank has named Doug Villone head of its U.S. cards and partnerships business. Villone, who worked at Barclays from 2007 to 2018, will return to the British bank's U.S. arm after a five-year stint at Goldman Sachs. He had joined Goldman in the early days of its efforts to expand into the U.S. consumer business, an initiative that has since been scaled back. Villone was global head of operations at Goldman's Marcus consumer platform, where he played a critical role in its expansion into credit cards, personal loans, investments and savings, Barclays said in the hiring announcement. Villone will start in April and succeed Bob Highland, who is retiring from Barclays after 15 years. — Polo Rocha

One of the executives leading Mastercard's foray into nonfungible tokens has left the company, leaving a digital mark as notification. Satvik Sethi, nonfungible token lead at Mastercard, this week announced his resignation using a Twitter thread. He also minted his resignation letter as an NFT. In the letter Sethi said working for Mastercard over the past year has been an "incredible learning experience" and he was grateful. He added his experiences at Mastercard made him more passionate about Web 3.0. He also claimed his compensation was lowered when relocating to London and it had become "a real struggle" to sustain himself. On Twitter, he claimed there were months he didn't receive his salary until "I begged across the hierarchy for it." Mastercard and other financial institutions including American Express, Visa and Ripple have been scoping out potential uses for NFTs, which are a digital representation of an individual, group or organization's art. Most of the early uses for NFTs at payment companies have been as part of incentive marketing or philanthropic giving. "We are aware of the concerns raised by Mr. Sethi. We take them very seriously and they will be looked into. We will do so with the continued respect for his privacy and will not have a further comment at this time," Mastercard's press office said in an email. — John Adams

Credit Union of Colorado in Denver named Phil Smith its next president. Smith has been with the $2.3 billion-asset credit union since 2010, and was most recently its chief operating officer. "Every day our team endeavors to actively support our members and the communities we serve," Smith said in a press release. "I'm dedicated to the implementation of strategic, financially prudent and innovative solutions — providing the best staff and member experiences while positioning the credit union for continued growth and expansion." The credit union did not say who will take over as COO. — Frank Gargano