In November 2017, Swaminathan Janakiraman was appointed as chief general manager for State Bank of India's Telangana circle, at Hyderabad. For two years in that role, he managed the bank's vast network of 1,100 branches in the area.
The Telangana circle is one of the largest circles for SBI, coming close to Delhi and Mumbai in size and responsibilities. Any person who leads such a large circle tends to have the full confidence of the Chairman of the bank, said a former senior colleague of Janakiraman, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
On Tuesday, the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet approved Janakiraman's appointment as Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of India. He is a managing director at SBI, since he took over the post in 2021.
He is presently responsible for SBI's vast corporate banking division, which constitutes nearly Rs 9.8 lakh crore or 12.5% of the total loan book. He is also in charge of the bank's subsidiaries, which include 17 domestic non-banking financial companies, four foreign non-banks and seven foreign banks.
Janakiraman is the first SBI official to take the post in over 20 years. Previously, SBI Managing Director Vepa Kamesam had graduated to become a deputy governor, in 2001. One of the four deputies at the RBI is usually a commercial banker.
Ashwani Bhatia, who held Janakiraman's current portfolio at SBI before him, was appointed as whole-time member at the Securities and Exchanges Board of India last year.
Janakiraman will now succeed MK Jain, who retires this week. Jain, who was MD and chief executive officer of IDBI Bank Ltd., was appointed as the central bank's deputy governor in 2018. It is not immediately clear what Janakiraman's portfolio will include, but Jain managed the Department of Supervision, financial inclusion, customer education and protection, among other duties.
If Janakiraman continues to manage the same portfolio, he will be the regulatory face a lot of his peers at SBI and other lenders will meet.
In his 34-year-long tenure at SBI, Janakiraman has worked in nearly every department of the bank, as is common for the top management. Some of his biggest assignments include being the vice president and head of trade finance at SBI's New York branch and deputy managing director in charge of strategy, digital banking and later, finance, at the central corporate office in Mumbai.
He has acted as SBI's nominee director on the boards of National Payments Corporation of India, NPCI International and Jio Payments Bank. He was also nominated to be SBI's eyes and ears on Yes Bank's board, when the private lender was rescued in March 2020.
Three of his former colleagues, who have all left SBI now, say one thing which sets Janakiraman apart is he is a people's leader. During his career he has always worked closely with every team he has been associated with and has led his assignments with aplomb. This attribute will come in handy when he joins the banking regulator, which will essentially be a new organisation, they said.
With Janakiraman's appointment, the RBI has found itself a professional who comes with immense commercial banking experience and a clear focus on compliance, said one of his former colleagues.
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