The Italian bank said the change, which was agreed with its controlling shareholder La Scogliera, was needed to speed up the bank's growth and digitalisation process after the covid outbreak.

Colombini was appointed Banca Ifis chief executive in 2019.

Frederik Geertman was deputy general manager and chief commercial officer of Italian bank UBI Banca and before that he had worked for ten years at UniCredit, Banca Ifis said in a statement.

(Reporting by Elisa Anzolin; editing by James Mackenzie)