Jill Murtagh
Jill Murtagh has carved out a distinguished career at senior management and C-Suite level within South Africa’s banking sector. She has extensive business expertise and is a specialist and deep subject matter expert in the local and international cross-border banking payments space. As such she is an internationally recognised speaker having addressed audiences in the United States, Europe and Canada.
She has a reputation for being an independent thinker and trailblazer. Jill began her career at Barclays Bank South Africa and was rapidly promoted to managerial level – the first female in the bank to achieve this distinction. After moving to First National and then ABSA Bank, she was poached by Mercantile Bank to head up their international division. She joined Bidvest Bank where she was appointed Executive Head: Payments and Banking Operations where her responsibilities covered banking operational support, and strategic payment gateways.
In this position Jill was Instrumental in establishing Bidvest’s Banking and Treasury operations, and directly involved in its successful transition from a Bureau de Change operation to a fully-fledged bank. She also established the bank’s local and cross-border end-to-end payment infrastructure where she oversaw not only the implementation of the systems and processes but also relationship management with payment technology providers and Correspondent banks.
In her capacity as an executive, Jill sat on the bank’s EXCO, Risk, Product and ALCO and was a regular invitee to Bidvest Bank’s Board meetings. Similarly, she represented Bidvest Bank as their member/responsible official (MOR) on several industry bodies.
She has studied throughout her career. She is a member of the Institute of Directors of South Africa (IODSA) and holds a number of relevant qualifications including an Associate Diploma of Banking (CAIB) International Banking Operations and an Advanced Diploma in Banking Rand Afrikaans Universiteit (1997)
Jill has also acted in a non-executive director capacity on a number of industry-related boards spanning more than two decades.
Jill currently serves as a Council member on the board of the Payment Association of South Africa Board (PASA) and has been a SWIFT User of South Africa (SUSA) executive member of the Swift National Member Group, and served on the interbank Payments Committee(IPC) for the Banking Association and on the Global Advisory Group for Wells Fargo Bank, in the United States for over a decade.
Since her retirement from Bidvest in 2023, she has dedicated herself to building the payments skills the South African economy so badly needs, and is much in demand for her advisory and consulting expertise.