Nedbank, South Africa’s fourth-largest lender, has appointed former MTN Group Chief Information Officer Nikos Angelopoulos as its new chief information officer, as banks increasingly recruit telecom executives to lead their digital transformation efforts.

Angelopoulos, who joins Nedbank on September 1, spent eight years overseeing technology strategy, cloud investments and digital infrastructure across MTN Group’s 16 markets. His appointment comes as banks invest heavily in artificial intelligence, cloud computing and cybersecurity, bringing the skills required to run large-scale telecommunications networks closer to those needed to operate modern financial institutions.

“Nikos is an internationally experienced technology executive with more than 30 years’ experience across Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas,” the bank said in a statement announcing the appointment on Friday. “He joins Nedbank from MTN Group, where he served as Group Chief Information Officer since 2018, with responsibility for information technology strategy, investments, delivery and governance across 16 markets serving more than 300 million customers.”

The appointment also reflects the growing convergence between banking and telecommunications. While the two sectors have traditionally operated in different worlds, both now depend on always-on digital services, real-time transactions, cybersecurity and data to serve millions of customers.

For banks, that means the skills needed to build tomorrow’s financial institutions increasingly resemble those required to run one of Africa’s largest telecom networks. Rather than relying solely on career bankers, lenders are recruiting executives with experience scaling complex digital ecosystems across telecoms, payments and other technology-driven…