Our Leadership
Our Leadership
Appointed to the position with effect from:
28 August 2026
Qualifications:
Skills, Experience and Expertise:
Afiza Abdullah brings more than two decades of experience across banking and insurance, with deep expertise in financial sector regulation, policy development, crisis management and resolution.
Her experience spans PIDM’s dual mandate: protecting deposits and takaful and insurance benefits, and serving as the resolution authority for its member institutions. Combined with her earlier work at Bank Negara Malaysia, this gives her a broad perspective on financial stability, prudential regulation and supervision.
Afiza has played a central role in shaping PIDM’s resolution framework. Her contributions include operationalising the Recovery and Resolution Planning framework with Bank Negara Malaysia in 2016, strengthening coordination among Malaysia’s financial safety net authorities through structured crisis simulation programmes, and developing resolvability expectations to support the orderly transfer of a member bank’s critical functions during resolution.
She joined PIDM in 2011 to lead the operationalisation of the Takaful and Insurance Benefits Protection System following the expansion of PIDM’s mandate and financial consumer protection coverage in 2010. Afiza has led a wide range of strategic initiatives, including implementing the Differential Levy Systems for insurer members; a risk-based framework designed not only to encourage sound risk management but also on resolvability capabilities; and developing the TIPS information regulations introduced in 2022.
As part of PIDM’s Board-led succession planning, Afiza progressed through increasingly senior leadership roles, becoming General Manager, Policy and International in 2016 and Executive Vice President, Resolution in 2022.
Before joining PIDM, Afiza spent more than nine years at Bank Negara Malaysia, where she contributed to prudential policy development for the banking and insurance sectors, the modernisation of the Central Bank of Malaysia Act 2009 and related regulatory frameworks, and the development of the Financial Sector Blueprint. She began her career with an audit firm in London in 1998 and later joined a Malaysian investment bank in 2000.
Internationally, Afiza has contributed to the advancement of deposit insurance, insurance guarantee schemes and resolution practices through global and regional forums. Her leadership roles in the International Association of Deposit Insurers (IADI) and the International Forum of Insurance Guarantee Schemes (IFIGS) have supported stronger financial safety nets, crisis preparedness and resolution capabilities, while enhancing PIDM’s standing and credibility among its international peers.
She currently serves as Vice Chairperson of IADI’s Asia-Pacific Regional Committee and previously chaired the IADI Resolution Working Group, which established the Resolution Technical Committee. She has also served as Vice Chairperson of IADI's Asia-Pacific Regional Committee since 2024 and previously held leadership positions in IFIGS as First Vice-Chair in 2021, Chair in 2022 and Second Vice-Chair in 2023.
