Ex-Telstra CIO lands at Royal Bank of Scotland

Former Telstra CIO Patrick Eltridge has been appointed the new head of the troubled IT shop at the Royal Bank of Scotland.

Eltridge's new role will see him draw on experience gained during previous roles at Standard Chartered Bank in Singapore and Westpac in Australia.

He takes over a position left vacant for more than six months, after former RBS CIO Scott Marcar left the company to join Deutsche Bank mid last year.

RBS has had its fair share of IT troubles - it last year outlined plans to restructure its IT systems to improve customer service and reduce the risk of failure, after a botched software upgrade in 2012 that affected more than six million customers saw it hit with £56 million (A$102 million) in fines.

It has spent £750 million since the June 2012 crash to rectify and improve its core IT systems, and is also acting on a plan to invest £1 billion in digital transformation.

That effort has so far seen it roll out iPads to branches for customers, implement free in-store wi-fi, and introduce revamped mobile banking applications.

Eltridge resigned from Telstra late last year after four years leading the telco's IT team. Telstra has since named its former cloud boss Erez Yarkoni to the CIO role.