Bluestone Group has announced the appointment of David Torpey as managing director of Bluestone Mortgages and group chief operations officer (COO).

Torpey has nearly 30 years of financial services experience in the UK, Sweden and Australia to the role.  The appointment remains subject to FCA approval and is expected to commence with effect from 1 July 2017.

Peter McGuinness, Bluestone Group CEO, will be acting as managing director of Bluestone Mortgages until that time.

Torpey’s most recent position has been as director of strategic projects at BlueStep Bank AB, the largest speciality mortgage lender in Sweden and Norway, where he focused on business development and funding projects. He initially joined BlueStep as managing director/CEO in October 2007, a role he held until June 2016.

He remains on the board of BlueStep Bank AB and is a shareholder of the business.

Prior to this, Torpey worked at Barclays plc from 1988 to 2007 in a variety of roles including eight years managing warehousing and securitisation funding facilities for niche financial services companies in Europe and Australia.

Peter McGuinness, CEO of Bluestone Group, said: “The Bluestone team has worked closely with David for nearly 15 years, initially through his role managing a number of significant wholesale and capital markets facilities for the business whilst at Barclays.

“It’s clear that David has continued to develop a deep understanding of the operational, funding and regulatory aspects of a specialist mortgage business and has been instrumental in driving the success of BlueStep in Scandinavia.

“David is held in high regard within the industry, and we are very much looking forward to him joining Bluestone at a time when we are developing a number of lending platforms, including Bluestone Mortgages in the UK and Bluestone Asset Finance in Ireland.”