Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank (ADIB) has named Fernando Plaza Lopez as its new chief digital officer to drive its digital agenda including product innovation and development, omnichannel and agile initiatives.
Fernando has over two decades of experience in the digital and payment industry, holding senior leadership roles at institutions such as Lloyds Banking Group, Vodafone Group, Emirates Group and Al Rajhi Bank. He was most recently the chief digital officer of Arab National Bank (ANB). Serhat Yildirim previously held the chief digital officer position at ADIB from 2018 until 2020.
In his previous stint at ANB, Fernando established a new business unit to drive digital, fintech, payments, and remittances growth. He led the digital transformation of the bank’s remittance business, driving online banking revenue growth, creating a payments group for point of sale, e-commerce acquiring, international remittances, and establishing a fintech partnership program, among others.
This latest hire follows the March appointment of Ashley Veasey, previously group chief information officer (CIO) at Scotiabank, as group CIO to spearhead the bank’s technology transformation.
The string of tech and digital-related appointments is in line with ADIB’s aggressive digital transformation strategy to drive innovation. In recent years, the bank has seen customer demand for digital banking services surge, with 70% of customers now enrolled through its digital channels and 99% of ADIB’s banking transactions conducted digitally.