State Bank of India has announced the appointment of Charanjit Attra as its new chief financial officer, the lender stated in an exchange filing. Attra is one of SBI’s latest lateral hires and will report to J Swaminathan, deputy managing director of the finance department. 

Attra will be responsible for overseeing statutory audit functions in the bank besides coordinating with the banking regulator and the National Financial Reporting Authority on auditor related issues. 

Prior to joining SBI, Attra worked as a partner at the global consulting firm EY. In one of his earlier stints, he served as the CFO of 3i Infotech and ICICI Securities.

The development to laterally hire a CFO comes after the lender had sought clarification from the central bank on its mandate to appoint specialized officers who are qualified CAs. With the banking sector undergoing rapid transformation, the central bank had urged banks to appoint qualified personnel to head critical functions such as finance to ensure better risk governance.

Towards this aim, in the guidelines published in May 2017, the central bank had recommended qualification as a CA and an experience of 15 years for the CFO’s post, besides experience in overseeing financial operations – preferably, accounting and taxation matters. Attra’s appointment is a step in this direction by the SBI to leverage his deep expertise in the lender’s operations in tandem with the central bank’s guidelines.