Fiserv Vet William Flyge Named US Bank’s Global Banks Head

U.S. Bank has named a payments industry veteran to head its global banks division.

William Flyge, who spent seven years in a senior business development role at Fiserv, will now oversee U.S. Bank’s credit, risk management and payment solutions offerings to financial institutions (FIs) worldwide, the bank announced Wednesday (May 17).

“Bill’s been a great partner in his career to banks across the globe,” Felicia La Forgia, head of U.S. Bank’s corporate banking business, said in a news release provided to PYMNTS.

“His deep industry expertise will help us continue to expand our support for financial institutions, so they have the tools they need to best serve their clients.”

In addition to his time at Fiserv, Flyge also held leadership positions in global relationship management and banking for “global banks and government sponsored” entities at Citi, HSBC and Bank of New York.

At U.S. Bank, he will oversee a division that offers FIs help in accessing capital and liquidity through credit and capital market services such as debt capital markets, foreign exchange, interest rate hedging and repo funding.

Flyge’s appointment comes following a rocky two-month stretch for the banking sector, in which many consumers moved funds from regional banks to larger lenders, such as U.S. Bank., following the failures of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and Signature Bank.

This week saw executives from the collapsed banks grilled by U.S. senators during a hearing before the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs.

“We know your banks were fatally mismanaged,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio. “The next obvious question is why? Why did you let things get this bad?”

Gregory Becker, former CEO of SVB, blamed rate hikes by the Federal Reserve and “rumors and misconceptions” for his firm’s demise — an argument lawmakers didn’t buy.

“Importantly, throughout 2020 until late 2021, the messaging from the Federal Reserve was that interest rates would remain low and that the inflation that was starting to bubble up would only be ‘transitory,’” Becker said.

“You made a really stupid bet that went bad,” replied Sen. John Kennedy, R-La.

“If you’d [hedged], that would have cut into your profits, wouldn’t it? If you’d made less money, that would have affected your bonus, wouldn’t it?” Kennedy added.