RBI greenlights three-year term for Rajiv Kumar as HDFC Bank chair

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has approved the appointment of Rajiv Kumar as chairman of the lender for three years, HDFC Bank said on Wednesday.

“Further to our announcement dated June 29, 2026, we would like to inform you that, as per the bank’s application to the Reserve Bank of India, the RBI in its notification dated July 15, 2026, has approved the appointment of Rajiv Kumar as the Part-Time Chairman of the bank,” it said in a regulatory filing. he said.

On June 29, HDFC Bank’s board approved the appointment of Rajiv Kumar as part-time chairman and additional (independent) director, three days after an external regulatory review cleared the bank in the controversy surrounding the departure of former chairman Atanu Chakraborty.

Kumar, a former election commissioner (CEC) and financial services secretary, will replace interim chairman Keki Mistry.

Mint had reported that Kumar will be the second IAS officer to hold the post after junior and former chairman Chakraborty, a 1985-batch retired IAS officer from the Gujarat cadre, resigned in March 2026 after voicing concerns over “certain events and practices within the bank”. Kumar is a 1984 batch IAS officer from Jharkhand cadre.

His appointment preceded the board’s decision to reappoint managing director and chief executive officer Sashidhar Jagdishan; This decision will be reviewed when the current mandate ends on October 26, 2026. Mint had previously reported that the board was awaiting the findings of an external legal review before taking a call for his reappointment.

Kumar served as secretary of the department of financial services (DFS) from 2017 to 2020. In this role, he cracked down on shell companies and black money in the financial services system and facilitated the crackdown on Ponzi schemes through the Prohibition of Unregulated Deposit Schemes Act of 2019.

He also led a comprehensive clean-up of public sector bank balance sheets, focusing on improving profitability and asset quality. This included: ₹3 trillion recapitalization of public sector banks, merger of 27 PSU banks into 12 stronger entities, increase in deposit insurance cover from 2015 ₹1 lakh ₹5 lakh and conversion of regional rural banks (RRBs) into one-state-one-RRB structure.