Rai says new Indian Overseas Bank CEO to be named by Friday

Banks Board Bureau (BBB) Chairman Vinod Rai today said the new head of Indian Overseas Bank (IOB) will be announced by Friday.
"The selection of the new CEO & MD of IOB was made long time back and there was a particular issue on which it got held up and now that has been clarified.
"Hopefully, by Friday it will be done," Rai told reporters on the sidelines of a banking award function organised by Dun & Bradstreet here this evening.
On August 9, appointments of Pawan Kumar Bajaj and Ravindra Prabhakar Marathe as Managing Director and CEO of United Bank of India and Bank of Maharashtra, respectively, were made.

Rai said BBB's priority is to ensure that board-level appointments are done at the earliest and added the government and RBI are doing their best to professionalise bank boards.
He parried a question on whether SBI Chairman Arundhanti Bhattacharya will get an extension to see through the ongoing merger of the five SBI associates and Bharatiya Mahila Bank, saying it would be better answered by the government.

Asked about RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan's call for giving broader mandate to the BBB, Rai said, "Some discussions are going on whether the term of reference of the BBB need to be tweaked further. We have been discussing with the government and as and when the government decides it, we will do it accordingly."

Earlier this month, Rajan had suggested that the BBB be allowed to select the senior officials of the state-run banks and not just recommend their names, as is being done now.
Rajan, in his August 16 speech, had also called upon the government to completely wriggle out of managing banks by mandating the BBB to handle appointments once their boards are professionalised.
In the interim, Rajan favoured the mandate for this to be vested with the fledgling BBB so that it can help improve the governance and management structures at public sector banks by allowing it to fully handle the appointments.

"Though the most pressing task for public sector banks is to clean up their balance sheets, a process which is well underway, a parallel task is to improve their governance and management," Rajan had said.
"Wherever possible, public sector bank boards should be bound by the same rules as private sector bank boards. Similarly, board membership of public sector banks should pay as well as private sector banks if they are to attract decent talent," the outgoing Governor had said.