Commonwealth Bank (CBA) CFO Rob Jesudason (L) watches on as CEO Ian Narev speaks at a news conference announcing the bank's full year results in Sydney, Australia, August 9, 2017.
Commonwealth Bank (CBA) CFO Rob Jesudason (L) watches on as CEO Ian Narev speaks at a news conference announcing the bank's full year results in Sydney, Australia, August 9, 2017. Reuters/Jason Reed

Commonwealth Bank chief financial officer Rob Jesudason has left the company to run a cryptocurrency company in Hong Kong. CBA’s Alan Docherty will replace him as acting CFO.

Jesudason has resigned from the bank effective immediately to become the chief operating officer of the blockchain company Block.one. He had been with CBA in his role for less than a year, replacing David Craig in June 2017.

He was previously CBA’s international financial services group executive in Hong Kong. And now he is returning to the country to become Block.one’s COO and group president. Docherty, who was CFO of CBA’s institutional Banking and Markets business, replaces him on an interim basis.

“I am very pleased to have someone of Alan’s calibre and experience step in to act as our chief financial officer while we complete an internal and external search for the role,” CBA chief executive Matt Comyn said. “We are making good progress with the renewal of the bank’s executive team and I expect to provide an update on appointments to my leadership team in the coming weeks.”

The company Jesudason is moving to is worth US$12.8 billion ($16.94 billion) and is the fifth largest cryptocurrency in the world. CEO Brendan Blumer said Jesudason’s skills is ideal for the open-source software publisher.

“Rob has a proven track record of success in global financial services. His alignment with our organisational priorities of creating compliant, high performance blockchain solutions is an ideal fit for Block.one, and is an exciting conclusion to our thorough search for the right individual,” he said in a statement.

The company, based in the Cayman Islands, is scheduled to launch the EOSIO project, which is called “the first performant blockchain platform for developers,” in June.

“The market’s strong response to Block.one’s approach has resulted in it being one of the fastest growing organisatiosn in the world, and this will inform our operational growth strategies going forward,” Judason said of blockchain, adding that it would have a transformative impact on many industries soon.

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