Dinesh Khara Takes Over As SBI Chairman

Dinesh Kumar Khara, managing director at State Bank of India, has taken over as chairman of India's largest lender after Rajnish Kumar retired.

Khara has been appointed for three years with effect from Oct. 7, according to a government notification on Tuesday night. Kumar's three-year term ended on Oct. 6.

Khara, in charge of SBI’s subsidiaries and international banking businesses, was recommended for the chairman’s role by the Banks Board Bureau in August.

On Monday, the bureau also recommended the names of S Janakiraman and Ashwani Tewari for the two managing director posts falling vacant at the end of this month. Arijit Basu, the managing director in charge of large corporate banking at SBI, retires on Oct. 31.

With SBI since 1984, Khara built his career across the retail, corporate, small business units of the bank. In his current role, he was the man behind the listing of SBI Life Insurance Co. and SBI Cards & Payments Services Ltd., two subsidiaries of the bank. Khara was also a key official behind the merger of five associate banks with SBI in 2017.

As the bank’s new chairman, Khara will need to manage the bank’s response to the Covid-19 crisis. SBI recently put out guidelines for restructuring of personal and corporate loans under the RBI’s one-time recast window. As chief of the country’s largest lender, Khara will also need to lead efforts to resolve any large corporate stressed assets under consortium lending arrangements.