RBI appoints Sudha Balakrishnan as its first chief financial officer; will serve 3-year term, says report

Sudha Balakrishnan has been appointed as the Reserve Bank of India’s first chief financial officer (CFO), according to a report in the Economic Times. Balakrishnan, a chartered accountant, was until recently a vice-president at the NSDL, India’s first and largest depository. She will be the 12th executive director at RBI, and will serve a three-year term, the ET report said. Till now, the central bank did not have a dedicated official handling the finance function, and the tasks were being carried out internally. The appointment is part a major organisational change being carried out by Governor Urjit Patel since he took charge as RBI governor in September 2016, a PTI report said. Patel’s predecessor Raghuram Rajan had pursued an idea of creating a chief operating officer for the apex bank but the government shot down the proposal as it involved changing the RBI Act. Rajan had also hired a slew of specialists from outside. [caption id=“attachment_4419497” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  RBI logo. Reuters[/caption] The CFO, who will be of the rank of executive director, will be responsible for accurate and timely presentation and reporting of financial information of the central bank, and establish accounting policies and procedures and ensure compliance with regulations. The CFO will also formulate the accounting policy of the bank, maintain the internal accounts and report financial results, and carry out corporate strategy functions like provident fund policies, according to PTI. The RBI first advertised seeking applications for the post of CFO in May 2017. Subsequently, the central bank modified the original appointment notice in November. “In view of modifications in eligibility criteria for the above-mentioned post, it has now been decided to accept fresh applications from applicants who had applied earlier in response to our advertisement No 6 & 6A/2016-17 dated May 15, 2017 for the said post (CFO),” according to the latest public notice by the RBI. Accordingly, it said, the last date for receiving applications for the post of CFO from all eligible candidates will now be 16 November, 2017.