The McCue Interview: BACS' IT chief Nick Masterson-Jones

We're all familiar with that end-of-the-month feeling, counting down the days until HR pops your payslip on your desk and you know there'll be money in your bank account again - at least until all the bills have been paid.

It wasn't always that way, though. Nick Masterson-Jones is the man who has made it happen. He's not the one who pays your salary, of course, but he's in charge of the technology that ensures it gets paid directly into your bank account by your employer - 93 per cent of all salaries now go through automated clearing house BACS, where Masterson-Jones is IT programmes director, along with an increasing proportion of government benefits payments.

Currently BACS processes over four billion financial transactions a year and handles over 60 million payments on a peak day, including Direct Debits, Direct Credits, Standing Orders and other inter-bank payments.

The organisation is considered so crucial to the UK's financial systems that it comes under the government's Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) plans of vital organisations and systems that need to be protected in emergency or disaster situations.

"The importance of getting it right is absolute. There are an awful lot of people out there who do actually rely very much on the fact the money is going to be in their account on Thursday morning or whenever," says Masterson-Jones. "Without us money just doesn't move around. The consequences of us failing are just horrendous."

So you'd probably be surprised to find it's actually quite a small physical organisation of around 400 people, based out of an anonymous office building in the centre of Rickmansworth in Hertfordshire. Masterson-Jones describes it as "small but perfectly formed".

He has been there just over a year now and was brought in to run the introduction of a £75m technology renewal programme that will see a new IP-based BACS system. This will require all businesses currently using BACS to switch over by December 2005 when the old system will be switched off.

The new Bacstel-IP network replaces the private telecoms network used by 40,000 businesses and will be secured using public key infrastructure (PKI) and smart card technology to authenticate users and encrypt payment instructions to the clearing house.

For larger companies the switchover can be complex. Masterson-Jones warns the December 2005 deadline is firm but says migration of firms to Bacstel-IP is progressing satisfactorily.

"We're past the early adopters and now hitting mass market so the numbers are going up really quite well and we're pleased with that."

Masterson-Jones' role is a very technology-focused one but he came to BACS after building up a background in banking, starting at JP Morgan after studying law at university.

"[JP Morgan] wanted IT people who were literate investment bankers so before I went anywhere near a computer or did any typing on a keyboard they put us through a hard banking programme which was great."

He then moved onto Swiss Bank - now UBS - as a business analyst and then worked as a management consultant for Deloitte & Touche and Charteris. Perhaps more interestingly he spent five years as deputy general manager of Latin American investment bank Nacional Financiera where he was responsible for IT and risk management.

"I was responsible for setting the limits and then going and having rows with the traders while they tried to persuade me they hadn't busted the limit at all," he says. Although the position was UK-based he did get to spend a lot of time flying over to Mexico City and admits to enjoying seeing the "wild side of life" over there.

And while the nightlife of Rickmansworth can hardly compete with Mexico City, Masterson-Jones is enjoying life with BACS.

"Our existing software has been out there for 10 to 20 years and it is time to renew it and we have to renew it in a very controlled way to avoid any risk to the payments industry. Once we've done that then we can start focusing on other opportunities," he says. "We have lots of ambitions for BACS Ltd. There are lots of new exciting projects coming down the path."

The rollout of the new network means it's a busy time and most of that is spent talking to the banks and BACS' key technology suppliers - BEA, IBM, Oracle and Sun. Legacy systems support is also handled by HPS, which is part of IT services firm Perot Systems.

When he does get away from the office, Masterson-Jones likes to steer clear of the technology he's been surrounded by all day. A keen interest in history means he devotes much of his free time to reading.

"It is difficult to switch off in this job but there is nothing finer in my way of thinking, and I'm a very sad git, in sitting down with a nice weighty tome. I'm pretty interested in medieval history or classical history. I've been reading some of the early Greek stuff - Plato."

He admits it hardly sounds light reading but says: "Some of the stuff you read it and three months later you realise he's making a joke."

Masterson-Jones also has a secret holiday hideaway in a deserted corner of the southwest of France where he can get away from it all. "I've been going there for about 10 years and it's fantastic because mobile phone reception is dreadful," he laughs.

For now though, it's about constantly improving reliability and availability and making sure everything works.

"There's a zeal about making sure things work and work the first time. That is fundamental to how BACS works," he says.