Ray Fischer has joined Wells Fargo to lead the Payments, Virtual Solutions and Innovations group, succeeding Avid Modjtabai, who will retire in March, 2020.

Fischer has worked in financial services for nearly 40 years and has deep expertise in payments, cards, merchant services and consumer finance. He spent 14 years at JPMorgan Chase as chief financial officer of Card, Merchant Services & Auto Finance. While there, he was instrumental in negotiating and executing the Chase Merchant Services partnership with Visa that created a closed-loop payments platform for Chase cardholders and merchants. Following that role, he was vice chairman and administrative officer of the Kessler Group.

Most recently, Fischer was a senior advisor to the Aries Financial Group, responsible for consulting with Fortune 1000 companies in the banking, payments and public utilities industries on mergers and acquisitions, business development, operations and marketing strategy and execution. He will report to Modjtabai and will be based in Wilmington, DE.

“Avid has held many important roles at Wells Fargo during her impressive 26-year career as the company’s leader in several areas including Internet Services, Human Resources, Technology and Operations and Consumer Lending,” said Charlie Scharf, Wells Fargo CEO and president. “Most recently she led the formation of the PVSI group in 2016, which brought together payments, digitization, innovation and other areas to serve as a catalyst for digitizing and transforming the company. On behalf of the entire company, I thank Avid for her service and contributions.”