Consider bankers as frontline workers for booster dose: AIBOC to Nirmala Sitharaman

Bank officers' union AIBOC has urged Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to consider bankers as the frontline workers for administering booster shots amid rising COVID-19 cases across the country.

In a letter addressed to the Finance Minister, All India Bank Officers' Confederation (AIBOC) also suggested the implementation of a 5-day week to break the chain of the spread of the virus.

At all branches or offices, only 50 per cent staff should be physically present, and remaining staff should be allowed to work from home, it said, adding special status to bankers for availing public transport, including suburban railways under essential service category.

The government has said the precaution dose of the COVID-19 vaccine to be given to healthcare workers, frontline workers and those aged 60 years and above with comorbidities from January 10.

There should be mandatory rapid antigen tests for bankers to 'Detect, isolate and treat' at regular intervals, AIBOC general secretary Soumya Datta said in the letter.

Pointing out that about 2,000 bankers lost their lives in the first two waves, the letter said, "We consider ourselves to be a part of the 'Financial Army', who have braved the constraints and have served the nation in the time of crisis".

Unfortunately, it said, the recognition of bank employees as Frontline Covid Warrior (FLW) was delayed, denying the opportunity of getting vaccinated along with other FLWs in the first instance, which could possibly have averted the loss of precious lives.

As per the Union Health Ministry latest data, the country witnessed a single-day rise of 1,41,986 new coronavirus cases, including 3,071 cases of the Omicron variant reported across 27 states and Union territories so far.

Source: Economic Times

CSB Bank MD & CEO takes early retirement on health grounds

C V R Rajendran, Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer, CSB Bank, decided to take early retirement on health grounds. He will continue as MD & CEO till March 2022.

His current three-year term was supposed to end on December 8, 2022. Rajendran has been holding the position of Managing Director & CEO since December 9, 2016.

In a statement, the lender said that Rajendra said he decided to take early retirement on health grounds under the advice of his physicians. His decision to move on from the post of Managing Director & CEO has been approved by the Board of Directors in a meeting held on Saturday, the lender said.

The Board decided to constitute a search committee to identify and evaluate candidates, either internally or externally, for the position of Managing Director & CEO. It will engage an independent executive search firm in this connection.

Rajendran was instrumental in turning around CSB Bank. Under his leadership, the bank registered an impressive performance and returned back to the path of profitability in Q1FY 20, after incurring losses for many consecutive quarters.

Rajendran was in instrumental in bringing Rs 1,208 crore of primary capital in CSB Bank from FIH Mauritius Investments Ltd (a subsidiary of Prem Vatsa controlled Fairfax India Holdings Corporation). He was also the key driver in spearheading CSB Bank through a successful initial public offering, which was oversubscribed 87 times.

Prior to moving to private sector banking space, he had a long innings in public sector banking space, including as chief of Andhra Bank and executive director at Bank of Maharashtra.

Rajendran has ensured the effective implementation of a slew of sustainable growth strategies, which included healthy prudential parameters such as risk assessment, business expansion with a firm eye on bottom line, reducing the NPAs, moving to verticalised business model, and turning the underperforming bank to a new age agile profit making entity, CSB Bank said.

Source: Business Standard

Asheesh Pandey joins Bank of Maharashtra as executive director

State-owned Bank of Maharashtra (BoM) on Friday said that Asheesh Pandey has joined as an executive director.

Prior to joining BoM, Pandey was chief general manager and chief operations officer (COO) at Union Bank of India and has a progressive professional career spanning more than 24 years. The bank said he has handled a diversified portfolio ranging from credit, credit monitoring, treasury and merchant banking, foreign transactions and joint ventures, marketing and customer relationships and banking operations.

“Asheesh Pandey is a mechanical engineer (Hons) with post-graduation in management (Hons) with specialization in finance and marketing. He is a certified associate of Indian Institute of Bankers, also holds NSE certification in insurance (both life and non-life), mutual funds and de-mat operations," it said.

The statement said that as chief general manager and COO of UBI took up the challenging role of the amalgamated entity during which the various process of re-engineering, harmonization, automation and digitization taken place.

He was a general manager of the credit monitoring and restructuring department of Union Bank of India during which the department had a complete overhaul in terms of monitoring and management of the bank’s credit portfolio by deploying data analytics.

Source : Livemint

Atul Kumar Goel takes charge as 'officer on special duty' in PNB

Punjab National Bank on Saturday said Atul Kumar Goel has taken charge as an 'officer on special duty', before taking over as its new MD and CEO next month.

Pursuant to the Department of Financial Services, Ministry of Finance, Government of India Notification dated December 28, 2021, Atul Kumar Goel has assumed office as Officer on Special Duty in Punjab National Bank, with effect from January 1, 2022, PNB said in a regulatory filing.

Goel will assume office as Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the bank with effect from February 1, 2022, upon the superannuation of S S Mallikarjuna Rao.

Rao's superannuation as MD and CEO of the bank is on January 31, 2022.

Source : Business Standard