Nayak to step down as Axis Bank chairman

P J Nayak will step down as Axis Bank's chairman & CEO from August after a nine-and-a-half year stint with the the bank. Nayak's term is due to end in July, 2009.

The 60-year-old is a former bureaucrat was the executive trustee at the erstwhile Unit Trust of India, the promoter of Axis Bank. The bank was earlier called UTI Bank.

The move is partly necessitated by the Reserve Bank of India's insistence to split the post of chairman and managing director. The central bank is keen on having non-executive chairmen at private banks.

Nayak was earlier the chairman and managing director of the bank but the post had to be split under pressure from RBI and he was appointed as the wholetime chairman with effect from August 2007.