Kerala based private lender gets approval from the Reserve bank of India for the appointment of Murali Ramakrishnan as CEO. The bank will have a new chief from October 1. He has already joined the bank as an advisor from July 1.
Murali Ramakrishnan is the first person from a private bank to become the head of the South Indian Bank. V.G Mathew, who has been running the bank for 6 years, will be retiring on September 30. The new appointment was made to this vacancy and it is for 3 years. Murali Ramakrishnan, who was the senior general manager at ICICI Bank, has been working as an advisor since July 1 for South Indian Bank. He has been the HongKong ICICI chief executive for more than three decades in the financial service industry, including banking. He has led operations across the continent and has led the way in the field of Retail and MSME. Before this, he has headed four business groups such as cluster banking group, emerging clusters group, construction equipment finance, and professional equipment finance. He is an IIM-Banglore Alumni and has years of experience in the field of banking. His experience will help the bank to execute all the plans to achieve their vision.
The drivers of the South Indian Bank were senior officials selected from State Bank of India or Nationalized banks. V J Mathew joined South Indian bank when he was the chief general manager in SBI. Mathew’s predecessor Dr.V A Joseph, was a general manager at Syndicate Bank.
South Indian Bank is very keen to expand its retail business and strengthen its SME base, reported a net loss of Rs 143.69 crore for the fourth quarter ended March 31, 2020, due to a multi-fold jump in provisioning requirement. Its provisioning for bad loans and contingencies for the quarter jumped over three times to Rs 723.80 crore, against Rs 219.15 crore As of September 2019, the bank had 870 branches, 53 extension counters, and 1,406 ATMs. The bank aims to become the Retail banking Power House by next year. So, now the bank is focusing on the retail lending segment.
