Arab Bank Switzerland Names Valérie Noël CEO of New Abu Dhabi Digital-Asset Unit
The Swiss private bank has secured an ADGM licence for a subsidiary advising clients on digital asset holdings, with a former Syz Group trading head in charge.
Arab Bank Switzerland has begun operating in Abu Dhabi Global Market through a new regional subsidiary, Arab Bank Switzerland ME Ltd, and has appointed Valérie Noël as its chief executive.
The entity holds a Financial Services Permission from ADGM's Financial Services Regulatory Authority. It will advise clients on getting access to digital asset holdings, managing them, and planning how those holdings are transferred. The client base it is chasing: financial institutions, corporates, fintech companies, family offices and high-net-worth individuals, all working inside ADGM's regulatory framework.
Noël carries more than 30 years across financial markets, wealth management, asset management, trading and digital assets. She started out in Geneva and held senior positions at HSBC Private Bank before joining Syz Group, where she was head of trading and ran multi-asset trading along with the digitalisation of the bank's trading infrastructure.
Investments in the digital asset space are becoming an increasingly important part of how institutions and investors allocate capital, Noël said, and they demand the same discipline, transparency and rigorous standards applied to traditional asset classes.
Arab Bank Switzerland began offering cryptocurrency custody and trading in 2019, and says it was the first FINMA-regulated private bank in Switzerland to do so. Staking, lending and legacy planning were added after that. Custody for NFTs arrived in 2022, and the bank runs a platform called Digital Explorer that gives clients a single view of their holdings and the market.
The Abu Dhabi step follows the group's entry into the Dubai International Financial Centre, where ABS (Middle East) Ltd opened in June 2026 under CEO Samir Atitallah. That arm concentrates on wealth management for entrepreneurs, family offices and high-net-worth individuals. Between the two UAE entities, the group now covers clients in both conventional wealth management and digital assets.
Two licensed bases in two emirates let the group serve Gulf clients without routing them through Switzerland, and the split of mandates is telling: digital assets in Abu Dhabi, wealth management in Dubai. Putting a trading veteran rather than a pure relationship banker at the head of the Abu Dhabi unit indicates where the group expects the work to come from.
Arab Bank Switzerland says its assets under management have risen to close to US$25 billion. It also owns Gonet, the Swiss private bank founded in 1845.
