Icra Head Replaces Roopa Kudva in RBI Panel

Mumbai: Rating agency Icra's chief Naresh Takkar has replaced former Crisil managing director Roopa Kudva as a member of the Reserve Bank of India's external advisory panel that evaluates applications for payment bank licences.

The committee formed in February is headed by Nachiket Mor, Director of the RBI's Central Board.

"The Reserve Bank has appointed Naresh Takkar, Managing Director & Group CEO, ICRA Limited as member of External Advisory Committee (EAC) for evaluating applications of payment banks in place of Roopa Kudva," the RBI said in a release on Monday.

Ms Kudva has withdrawn from the committee, it added.

Other members of the committee include Shubhalakshmi Panse, former chairman and managing director of Allahabad Bank, and Deepak Phatak, chair professor at IIT, Bombay.

The RBI is likely to issue small and payment bank licences by the end of the year, Deputy Governor S S Mundra had said recently.

"We expect that it (issuing payment and small bank licences) should happen during the course of this year. Both are work in progress and hopefully both should happen in the course of this calendar year," Mr Mundra, who is in-charge of banking supervision at the RBI, had said.

In February as many 74 companies/entities/individuals had applied for licences to set up small banks and payments banks. The issuance of such bank licences came after the RBI, in 2014, had found just two entities - IDFC and microfinance lender Bandhan - from among over two dozen applicants - eligible for setting up commercial banks.

The RBI issued this limited set of licences after a decade. Both the applicants are yet to begin their operations even after a year as they have time till October.