The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet, which is headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has named Ashwani Bhatia as the Managing Director of the State Bank of India -- India's largest state-owned lender.

A notification was issued by the government on August 21 to make the announcement. It stated:

“The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) has approved the proposal of the Department of Financial Services for the appointment of Ashwani Bhatia, Deputy Managing Director (DMD), State Bank of India (SBI) as the Managing Director (MD) in SBI with effect from the date of assumption of office an up to the date of his superannuation, or until further orders, whichever is earlier.”

Bhatia is an experienced banking and financial services professional and comes with over 34 years of experience in the State Bank Group in manifold areas, including treasury, network banking, credit, investment banking, and asset management. He was also the MD and CEO of SBI Mutual Fund.

Bhatia emerged as one of the frontrunners for the SBI MD post after the Banks Board Bureau (BBB) had recommended his name for the same in May this year. The bureau members had made the recommendation after interacting with 20 candidates from public sector banks on May 30.

The BBB was formed in 2016 to makes recommendations for the appointment of whole-time directors as well as non-executive chairpersons of nationalized banks. With this appointment, Bhatia e will be the fourth MD of the country’s largest public sector bank, with Arijit Basu, CS Shetty, and Dinesh Khara being the other three.