Backbase has appointed Tikkie founder Roland Booijen as chief product officer for agentic banking, giving him responsibility for the company’s strategy as banks move towards AI agents capable of handling customer requests from start to finish.
Booijen will oversee product strategy across conversational banking, relationship intelligence and customer operations. His remit will include developing AI agents designed to resolve routine banking tasks while allowing relationship managers and other frontline employees to focus on higher-value interactions.
The appointment comes five months after Backbase launched its AI-native Banking OS and follows the company’s acquisition of Kasisto, a specialist in conversational and agentic AI for banking.
Booijen will report to Backbase founder and CEO Jouk Pleiter as the company continues its shift from digital banking software towards an AI-native operating system designed to connect frontline banking functions.
He brings more than a decade of product leadership experience in banking technology. Before taking on the new role, Booijen was Backbase’s general manager for ecosystems, where he was responsible for product, technology and commercial strategy across its Marketplace and Connector offering.
Earlier in his career, Booijen founded Tikkie, the Dutch payment app, and held several director roles at ABN AMRO.
Backbase is positioning its platform around a “Unified Frontline”, bringing employees and AI agents together across the customer lifecycle. The company’s technology is used by more than 120 banks across retail, SMB and commercial banking, private banking and wealth management.
The appointment comes as financial institutions increasingly move beyond individual AI experiments towards broader enterprise deployments. Salesforce data cited by Backbase shows that use of AI agents among customer service organisations increased 1.7x between 2025 and 2026, while 70% of organisations adopting the technology reported measurable value within 60 days of deployment.
Backbase founder and CEO Jouk Pleiter said, “Roland has spent years building the products that took us from digital banking to agentic banking. Giving him this mandate now, reflects our dedication to lead the charge in this space. He’s the right person to take our agents to the frontline to serve millions of people around the world”
Backbase chief product officer, agentic banking Roland Booijen added, “The next generation of bank users won’t know a branch, and they won’t type an account number into a five-step form. They’ll talk to their bank the way they talk to Claude or ChatGPT, and expect outcomes. And inside the bank, employees will work hand in hand with agents to deliver them. It’s an honor to have a role at a company that’s actively shaping that future”
Copyright © 2026 FinTech Global
