Paysafe Group has confirmed the appointment of Chirag Patel to the position of Chief Executive of its Digital Wallets unit.

The former payments officer for Amazon and Santander Bank will be charged with overseeing the commercial growth strategy and operations of Paysafe’s digital wallets of Skrill and Neteller.

Patel will replace Lorenzo Pellegrino as leader of Paysafe’s wallet division – who has been promoted to a strategic advisory role for Skrill Limited.

Patel commented on his new position: “I am really looking forward to joining the Paysafe team next month and to be given the opportunity to lead its exciting Digital Wallets business. I believe there is enormous potential to extend the offering to more and more customers given Skrill and Neteller’s worldwide presence, combined with Paysafe’s great technology and talented team.”

The firm’s digital wallet solutions, which includes Skrill and Neteller, enables consumers to store, withdraw and make purchases in over 40 currencies from a virtual account as well as buy and sell interests in cryptocurrency and make international money transfers.

In his previous role at Santander, Patel launched a global payments platform and significantly increased usage of the bank’s payments products and services. Before Santander, Patel was Amazon’s Head of Payments, Europe and International Expansion, where he was responsible for the company’s product roadmap for emerging payments technologies and international payment expansion.

Philip McHugh, Paysafe’s CEO, added: “Chirag has an awesome track record as a high-performing payments’ executive and has successfully launched and grown multiple consumer-facing and B2B payments products and services around the world. I’m thrilled to have someone of his calibre and energy-level to take our Digital Wallets business to the next level of growth.

“I’d like to add my sincere thanks to Lorenzo for the immense passion and drive he has shown over the past 15 years as he launched our digital wallet solutions around the world. We now offer two of the most popular and sophisticated digital wallet brands on the planet and have strong foundations to continue building on as we grow the business.”