New Chairpersons appointed for three PSU banks

The Narendra Modi government today appointed non-executive chairpersons for three state-run banks.

Charan Singh, the RBI chair professor at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, has been appointed as the non-executive chairman of Punjab & Sind Bank, Financial Services Secretary Rajiv Kumar tweeted.

Anjali Bansal, the former managing director of TPG Private Equity, has been appointed at Dena Bank, while Tapan Ray, the former corporate affairs secretary, will take charge at Central Bank of India. The three appointees will be part-time non-official directors on the boards of the three public sector banks.

The appointments have been made based on the suggestions of Banks Board Bureau headed by Bhanu Pratap Sharma, Kumar tweeted.

The government has been experimenting with appointing experts from a variety of fields as chairpersons of public sector banks. In 2015, Ravi Venkatesan had been appointed as the non-executive chairperson of Bank of Baroda. In the same year, G Padmanabhan, former executive director of the RBI had been appointed as chairperson of Bank of India.

This is a move towards separating the responsibility between chairman and managing directors for better functioning of public sector banks, Kumar said while announcing the fresh appointments on Thursday.

Each of the three banks where new chairpersons have been appointed are grappling with stress.

Dena Bank, for instance, was recently told to stop fresh lending by the RBI. The bank reported a gross non performing assets ratio of 22 percent as of March 2018. Central Bank of India, too, had a bad loan ratio close to that of 21 percent. Punjab and Sind Bank is in a marginally better position with a bad loan ratio of 11 percent.

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Allahabad Bank chief relieved of CEO duties

Public sector lender Allahabad Bank May 15 relieved its Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Usha Ananthasubramanian of her post with immediate effect.

“The Board of Directors of the Bank in its meeting held on the date has decided that Usha Ananthasubramanian, MD & CEO be divested of all functional responsibilities of the Bank with immediate effect,” said the bank in a statement to the exchanges.

The bank also requested the Finance Ministry to make suitable arrangements for its smooth functioning after this decision. She is set for superannuation on September 30, 2018.

Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) filed a chargesheet against current and former officials of Punjab National Bank (PNB) and  Allahabad Bank, the Finance Ministry has directed both the banks’ boards to 'divest' these officials of their powers.

The chargesheeted officials include Usha Ananthasubramanian, who was also the former chief of Punjab National Bank. She has been named by the CBI in the charge sheet relating to the Rs 14,000 crore-plus fraud at PNB unearthed in mid-February.

Who is Usha Ananthasubramanian?

Ananthasubramanian (57), was at the helm of PNB from August 2015 to May 2017 after serving as its Executive Director from July 2011 to November 2013.

She took charge of PNB at a time when the bank was struggling under a heap of bad loans while being under the RBI’s scrutiny for deterioration in asset quality.

At that time, Ananthasubramanian took an aggressive stance on PNB’s non-performing assets (NPAs) and wilful defaulters. She also refused to take a haircut on loans to the notorious Vijay Mallya’s Kingfisher Airlines.

Later, she was moved to lead Bharatiya Mahila Bank, India’s first and only government-owned women’s bank, which got merged with State Bank of India in April 2017.

After that, in May she was moved to Allahabad Bank as the MD and CEO and completed a year at the state-owned bank on May 5.

Source- Moneycontrol

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Bank of India(BOI) expects to return to black in Q2 said D B Mohapatra

Bank of India (BoI), which had been reporting losses for last two consecutive fiscals, expects to return to black in the second quarter of current fiscal.

“Our operating profit is very robust and net interest income is strong. But we had been making losses as were making higher provisioning for NPAs. 

We hope to make net profits in the second quarter of current fiscal”, MD and CEO of BoI D B Mohapatra told reporters here today.

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Government demotes two top chief executives of Punjab National Bank and Bank of India

Sunil Mehta has been appointed to head Punjab National Bank, the country's second largest public sector bank, in place of Usha Ananthasubramanian, in a series of changes at public sector lenders. Dinabandhu Mohapatra has been promoted as chief executive officer of Bank of India, replacing Melwyn Rego. 

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