U.S. financial technology firm Plaid has hired former Adyen executive Brian Dammeir as its new head of Europe, the company told CNBC exclusively.

Dammeir was previously Adyen's global head of unified commerce, a role he led out of the Dutch payment company's San Francisco office. Dammeir oversaw a key part of Adyen's business — joining up different payment experiences including online, in-store, and app-based, in one single platform.

Dammeir will take over the reins from Ripsy Bandourian, who previously oversaw the company's expansion across Europe, at a pivotal time for the company as it branches out into other areas of finance including payments and lending.

Plaid, which was last valued by investors at $13.4 billion in a funding round, offers technology that enables financial technology apps to retrieve data from people's bank accounts and initiate payments on their behalf.

It is part of a movement in finance and technology known as "open banking," which encourages the opening up of financial data to non-bank financial institutions to encourage competition in the sector.

Dammeir told CNBC in an exclusive interview Monday that the thing he was most excited by in joining the company was "the opportunity around open finance," an evolution on open banking that looks to innovate in all areas of finance, including lending.

"When we think about Europe, it's about how can we be more relevant globally … how can we find more and more use cases outside of our starting point in fintech." Dammeir told CNBC.

"Right now, that's really about expanding into account-to-account payments as well as into lending and traditional banking," he added.

Bandourian, a former Booking.com executive, was appointed the company's first head of Europe last year. She worked with Keith Grose, formerly Plaid's head of international, who now focuses largely on running the U.K. business.

Bandourian left Plaid to "pursue other passions," a company spokesperson told CNBC via email. Dammeir had interacted with executives at Plaid for "more than a decade," the spokesperson added.

Dammeir didn't take his decision to quit Adyen lightly. The longtime fintech executive held positions at Adyen in its North American and European offices for more than eight years, starting in product, before graduating onto general management and strategy across North America and Europe.

Dammeir said that Plaid wanted to encourage a broader movement toward so-called "open finance," which would enable the creation of innovative new products in lending, insurance, and other parts of the finance ecosystem.

Payments has been a big focus for Plaid beyond financial data, with payment volumes on the platform having climbed more than 90% in 2023.

Now, Plaid is looking to work with partners beyond just fintechs, Dammeir indicated, without sharing names of any of its potential future partners. The company already works with the likes of Monzo, Checkout.com, Public, and Moneybox.