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

Mumbai, Aug 31 (PTI) Banks Board Bureau (BBB) ChairmanVinod 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 longtime back and there was a particular issue on which it gotheld up and now that has been clarified. "Hopefully, by Friday it will be done," Rai told reporterson the sidelines of a banking award function organised by Dun& Bradstreet here this evening. On August 9, appointments of Pawan Kumar Bajaj andRavindra Prabhakar Marathe as Managing Director and CEO ofUnited Bank of India and Bank of Maharashtra, respectively,were made. Rai said BBB’s priority is to ensure that board-levelappointments are done at the earliest and added the governmentand RBI are doing their best to professionalise bank boards. He parried a question on whether SBI Chairman ArundhantiBhattacharya will get an extension to see through the ongoingmerger 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 givingbroader mandate to the BBB, Rai said, "Some discussions aregoing on whether the term of reference of the BBB need to betweaked further. We have been discussing with the governmentand as and when the government decides it, we will do itaccordingly." Earlier this month, Rajan had suggested that the BBB beallowed to select the senior officials of the state-run banksand not just recommend their names, as is being done now. Rajan, in his August 16 speech, had also called upon thegovernment to completely wriggle out of managing banks bymandating the BBB to handle appointments once their boards areprofessionalised. In the interim, Rajan favoured the mandate for this to bevested with the fledgling BBB so that it can help improve thegovernance and management structures at public sector banks byallowing it to fully handle the appointments. "Though the most pressing task for public sector banks isto clean up their balance sheets, a process which is wellunderway, a parallel task is to improve their governance andmanagement," Rajan had said. "Wherever possible, public sector bank boards should bebound by the same rules as private sector bank boards.Similarly, board membership of public sector banks should payas well as private sector banks if they are to attract decenttalent," the outgoing Governor had said. PTI HV AA BEN RSYABMRDS