Private sector lender RBL Bank has seen some major changes at the top management level starting with the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI’s) appointment of Yogesh K Dayal as an additional director.  Plus, the bank’s board accepted the request of the MD & CEO Vishwavir Ahuja to proceed on leave with immediate effect. 

The board approved the appointment of Rajeev Ahuja, executive director, as interim managing director & CEO with immediate effect, the bank informed the stock exchanges.

However, in its notification to exchanges, the bank did not mention a reason for Ahuja’s leave, but said, “other terms and conditions of his appointment, such as remuneration, would remain unchanged.”

Dayal, who has been appointed director for a term of two years, is a chief general manager at the central bank in charge of the Department of Communication. Earlier, he was with Monetary Policy Department and the Department of Banking Supervision.

This is not the first instance that the banking regulator has exercised its right to appoint an additional director on the board of the private bank. In the past, the apex bank had appointed a director on board of Yes Bank, Ujjivan Small Finance Bank and Dhanlaxmi Bank.

The bank’s board welcomed Dayal to the board, and said it will benefit the bank “considering his rich experience with the highly respected regulator.”

Ahuja, who was chief executive of Bank of America in India for eight years until 2008, had transformed the 100-year-old Ratnakar Bank by bringing in new management and investors. The bank was renamed, and it was listed following an IPO in 2016. Ahuja had a 3 per cent stake before the IPO which has come down to 1 per cent following equity dilution and sale of shares.

RBL Bank assured the investors that it is “well placed to execute its business plan and strategy, as communicated during our earnings, call dated October 28, 2021.”

“The business and financial trajectory continues to be on improving trend, post absorbing the challenges due to Covid 2 pandemic,” the bank said in a notification.

The financials of the bank is “robust with a healthy capital adequacy of 16.3 per cent, high levels of liquidity” as reflected through Liquidity Coverage Ratio of 155 per cent, stable Net non-performing assets (NPA) of 2.14 per cent, credit deposit ratio of 74.1 per cent and a leverage ratio of 10 per cent, for the quarter ended September 30, 2021. 

“In addition, the bank has also improved the granularity of its deposits and advances,” the bank said in a notification.