Ravi Kumar Named New Stanchart Treasury Head

M A Ravi Kumar has taken over as the head of global markets, India, of the Standard Chartered group.

With the appointment of Ravi Kumar, StanChart's search for a treasury head has come to an end. John Masters, who earlier headed the division, left the bank for an overseas assignment in early August.

Ravi Kumar was earlier the vice-president and country treasurer at Citibank, Russia. He managed a balance sheet size of $ 1.2 billion and was also instrumental in setting up the treasury marketing unit there. He was also the country treasurer, Citibank, Romania, and deputy treasurer at Citibank, India.

The StanChart group had also appointed Rajan Ray as the head of corporate and institutional banking (India) some months ago. Earlier, Jaspal Bindra, regional general manager of the group, held the position.

Prior to joining Standard Chartered, Rajan Ray was with ABN Amro N V where he was also the country manager, Singapore and Sri Lanka. He was earlier at Grindlays Bank India and EODC (ASIA) Ltd, Hong Kong.

With the appointment of Ravi Kumar, the only vacant top position left in the bank is the head of consumer banking. Harpal Dugal, general manager and chief executive officer of consumer banking, Standard Chartered Bank, is to join as the global head of business value leadership strategy in Singapore. Vishu Ramchandran, StanChart's south-east Asia head, has taken over temporarily as the head of consumer banking.

Standard Charterd Bank is going forward with its integration plan to merge the erstwhile operations of ANZ Grindlays. The bank will go in for complete legal and technology integration by August 2002. The merged entity will be known as Standard Chartered Bank.