MADRID, March 18 (Reuters) - Spain's Sabadell on Thursday formally appointed Cesar Gonzalez-Bueno as the bank's new chief executive replacing Jaime Guardiola after receiving the green light from the European Central Bank (ECB).

The bank also unveiled a plan to structure its domestic division into three key units, for retail, business and corporates, in an attempt to improve its battered profitability, and said digitalisation would be a key element of its new strategy to be unveiled in May.

The changes take place after the collapse of talks in November with BBVA to form Spain's second-largest domestic lender in terms of assets.

This failure has piled pressure on Sabadell, with investors worried about the bank's ability to handle on its own the expected pick-up in bad loans stemming from the COVID-19 crisis. (Reporting by Jesús Aguado, editing by Andrei Khalip)