Belgian co-operative bank NewB has appointed Vincent Biauce as its new CEO, to succeed Thierry Smets.
Biauce, who has over 20 years’ experience in the banking sector, will be responsible for the business development and day-to-day management of NewB and its insurance product offering in partnership with Monceau Assurances.
He joined the financial sector in 2001 as an asset manager and later project manager at Fortis Bank. He continued in a series of project management roles, including at BKCP Bank, Beobank and KeyTrade Bank (a subsidiary of French mutual banking group Credit Mutuel Arkea).
At KeyTrade, he coordinated the teams working on the merger activities of banking entities or projects to improve back-office activities until May 2023.
Past roles include working for the Federal Agency for the reception of asylum seekers (Fedasil), where he worked on implementing solutions with reception partners Red Cross, CIRE and Vluchtenlingenwerk Vlaanderen.
“With its banking and insurance partners, NewB now has a wide range of financial and insurance solutions,” said Biauce. “Our goal: to convince positive project leaders and committed citizens to join us.”
His appointment as an executive member of the NewB board still needs to be approved by the general meeting on 18 November 2023, and by the regulator.
NewB, which entered a partnership agreement with vdk bank on 1 April, was set up in 2019 as co-operative bank. In 2022 it was placed under the supervision of a court-appointed administrator last year after failing to meet a €40m capital requirement set by the National Bank of Belgium.
As a result of the partnership, NewB became a banking and investment agent for vdk. The deal saw 25,000 clients transferred to vdk on 1 April, and NewB had to give up its banking license.
