MANILA (Reuters) - Rizal Commercial Banking Corp (RCBC) said on Monday (May 16) that its board has appointed a new president replacing Mr Lorenzo Tan, who resigned but was cleared by the Philippine bank of any wrongdoing in a US$81 million (S$111 million) money laundering scandal.

Mr Gil Buenaventura, currently president and chief executive of state-run Development Bank of the Philippines, will take over as RCBC president and chief executive from July 1, RCBC said in a statement.

The veteran banker is a former senior executive vice-president and chief operating officer of the Bank of the Philippine Islands, one of the country's three biggest lenders.

RCBC, the country's ninth-largest lender by assets, said on May 6 that it had accepted the resignation of Mr Tan.

In early February, unidentified hackers infiltrated the computers at the Bangladesh central bank and tried to transfer US$951 million from its settlement account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Most transfers were blocked, but US$81 million was sent to four accounts at a branch of RCBC and then moved through a remittance firm and later to casinos and gambling agents. Most of that money is missing.

The Philippine Senate is scheduled to resume its money-laundering probe on May 19.