Kalgera expands senior team with the appointment of commercial director

From big tech to cutting-edge AI solutions, Phil Sorrell's background aligns perfectly with Kalgera's mission to protect vulnerable customers in the financial sector
Kalgera Team

December 01, 2021, London – Kalgera, which enables banks and financial institutions to identify and protect vulnerable customers from financial harm, is announcing today that it is expanding its senior team with the appointment of Phil Sorrell as Commercial Director.  

The appointment comes after the RegTech platform announced its multi-disciplinary board of advisors earlier this year, as it ramps up its mission to protect vulnerable customers.  

Sorrell’s experience spans both blue-chip companies and start-ups, where he specialised in tech solutions, identification verification product development and AI solutions. He spent the first half of his career working in big tech in IBM and Unisys before co-founding a company that launched the world’s first secure mobile banking app. More recently, Phil worked with SaaS cybersecurity start-up, CyberSmart and FinTech-Labs.

Kalgera’s platform integrates with banks’ existing systems to enable them to securely access, filter and evaluate customers’ transaction data using advanced AI and cutting-edge cognitive neuroscience to enable them to detect possible characteristics of vulnerability.

Founded by Chief Executive Dr Dexter Penn, a doctor and UCL dementia researcher, Kalgera was created to better recognise the issues facing vulnerable people and enable banks and financial institutions to manage risk and comply with recent FCA guidelines for protecting vulnerable customers while also providing enhanced levels of service to customers.

Due to COVID 19, there has been a rise in the number of people left financially vulnerable. The FCA’s Financial Lives Survey concluded in October 2020, found more than half (53%) of UK adults (over 27 million people) are noted to be displaying a characteristic of vulnerability – a rise of more than 3 million potentially vulnerable customers February and October 2020.

Phil Sorrell commented: “I am delighted to be joining as Director of Commercial to support Kalgera in its efforts to help safeguard more vulnerable customers against financial abuse. The impact of Covid has been devastating for many people, making it more important than ever to better identify characteristics of vulnerability and work together as an industry to better protect vulnerable customers.”

Dr Dexter Penn, Founder of Kalgera, commented: “The need to protect vulnerable customers from financial harm has never been greater. The addition of high calibre talent like Phil to the team is a testament to that need and our ambition at Kalgera to change financial services for the better. His extensive experience will be invaluable in shaping the future of our platform and connecting us with new opportunities to design innovative solutions to meet the needs of the financial sector.”

Kalgera is an alum of the prestigious UK National Cybersecurity Centre’s Cyber Accelerator run by Wayra and worked with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) on its Digital Sandbox Pilot focused on vulnerable customers.

About Kalgera

Kalgera, a London-based RegTech, is the first line of defence for financial institutions who want to actively support its most vulnerable customers. By helping the finance sector identify customer vulnerability through transactional data, Kalgera creates better outcomes for the customer and the financial institution itself.

We are committed to working with banks through several avenues to comply with the FCA's Consumer Duty Act. Kalgera’s state-of-the-art technology uses 11 parallel AI models to pinpoint vulnerability to financial abuse and low financial resilience with greater precision.

You can find our online training, in association with the London Institute of Banking and Finance (LIBF), here and more information over at our website.

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