Saudi Hollandi Bank will now be Alawwal Bank. This is part of a rebranding exercise undertaken by the bank. Alawwal means ‘the first’ in Arabic. The bank is also hiring a new CEO, Soren Nikolajsen, to replace Bernd van Linder, who has resigned from the bank in October. Nikolajsen will join the bank on 1 January 2017. He has been a non-executive director of Saudi Hollandi Bank since December 2013. He is now with Royal Bank of Scotland where he is head of Executive Office, Corporate and Institutional Banking. The rebranding is intended to mark the end of the bank’s relations with the Netherlands which date back to its origins as part of the Netherlands Trading Society, which served haj pilgrims from the Dutch East Indies, now Indonesia. The bank will also roll out a new corporate identity. The whole exercise also coincides with the decision of Royal Bank of Scotland to sell of its 40% stake in the bank.
