AIB’s Robert Mulhall approved to head UK unit

Top AIB executive Robert Mulhall will take over as managing director of the group business in the UK and Northern Ireland this week, having secured approval from regulators in London to assume the role.

Previously head of AIB’s Irish retail division, Mr Mulhall was named in October as the next chief of the UK unit as Brendan O’Connor prepared to leave the bank. Jim O’Keeffe succeeded Mr Mulhall as director of retail banking.

Mr Mulhall returned to AIB in late 2015 from consulting group Accenture, where he had worked for two years in the US. Prior to that, he had worked for the bank for more than 18 years, in a number of areas, including retail banking, digital innovation, change management, governance and risk, customer relations, strategic marketing, and operations management.

Mr Mulhall drove AIB's €100 million acquisition of payments company Payzone last year.

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Confirmation that Mr Mulhall is taking up the UK job will kill speculation in financial circles in recent times that he was being lined up as a successor to insurer FBD's chief executive Fiona Muldoon, who is set to step down in the coming months.