The appointment has been accepted underneath Part 10B(1A)(i) of the Banking Regulation Act, 1949, the financial institution stated in a inventory trade submitting. Rajiv Kumar’s appointment follows the financial institution’s software to the RBI and an earlier intimation made on June 29.
The financial institution additionally thanked Keki Mistry for his steerage and contributions throughout his tenure as interim part-time chairman. Mistry will proceed to function a non-executive, non-independent director on HDFC Financial institution’s board.
Kumar has been a public coverage chief and monetary sector reformer and is broadly credited with enjoying a key function in revitalising India’s banking and monetary system throughout a interval of great stress between 2017 and 2020.
Kumar has labored in the direction of strengthening governance, danger administration and regulatory oversight throughout banks by institutionalising specialised monitoring of huge exposures and introducing technology-driven danger evaluation programs.
Who’s Rajiv Kumar?
Rajiv Kumar, 66, is a 1984-batch former IAS officer who retired as India’s Finance Secretary in February 2020 after main the Division of Monetary Companies between 2017 and 2020. Following his retirement, he briefly served as chairman of the Public Enterprises Choice Board (PESB).
Throughout his tenure on the Division of Monetary Companies, Kumar oversaw reforms aimed toward cleansing up the banking sector at a time when public sector banks have been grappling with excessive non-performing belongings (NPAs), weak capital positions and governance challenges. He spearheaded the federal government’s “4R technique”—Recognition, Decision, Recapitalisation and Reforms—which targeted on clear NPA recognition, quicker decision underneath the Insolvency and Chapter Code, capital infusion of over ₹3 lakh crore into public sector banks, and consolidation of 27 state-run lenders into 12 entities.Kumar additionally led measures to strengthen banking governance and danger administration, together with tighter fraud monitoring, technology-driven danger evaluation, enhanced oversight of huge loans and elevating deposit insurance coverage protection from ₹1 lakh to ₹5 lakh. He additionally pushed monetary inclusion underneath the Jan Dhan framework, expanded credit score to retail, agriculture and MSMEs, and applied reforms to strengthen the NBFC sector and public sector banks by the EASE agenda.
He later served because the twenty fifth Chief Election Commissioner of India and oversaw the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, which recorded participation of round 642 million voters, together with about 312 million girls electors.
Over the course of his profession, Kumar has additionally served on or chaired a number of key monetary establishments and committees, together with the RBI’s Central Board, the Monetary Stability and Growth Council, the Financial institution Board Bureau, the boards of State Financial institution of India and NABARD, and committees on the RBI’s financial capital framework and the restructuring of NITI Aayog.
