MUMBAI: The Reserve Bank is likely to clear the name of the next chief executive of the troubled Indusind Bank, which has been headless since late April after both its CEO and deputy CEO quit owning up moral responsibility for the accounting scam that plagued it since early March, this month itself—by massively cutting short its time consuming application vetting process that normally takes three to four months normally.
The board of the Hinduja group-owned bank led by chairman Sunil Mehta had submitted its list of three possible candidates to the Reserve Bank on June 30, as mandated by the regulator.
Though there has been no public acknowledgement of the submission, it has been learnt that the board has shortlisted three names-- Rajiv Anand of Axis Bank, Anup Saha of Bajaj Finance, and Rahul Shukla of HDFC Bank--to man the top deck. Among the three the rumour mill is that the 59-year-old Anand leads the race to the corner office of the sixth largest private sector lender.
Indusind Bank has been headless since late April when the scam-tainted chief executive Sumant Kathpalia and his deputy Arun Khurana resigned owning moral responsibility for the massive losses in its forex derivatives trading book and had to book a massive Rs 2,329 crore in net losses in the March quarter.
“Indusind Bank should have a new CEO before the end of this month itself. The RBI is keen to ensure that the bank has a full-time CEO at the earliest,” a person in the know of the RBI mindset on the matter told TNIE.
“A regulatory approval coming in within a month of the board submitting its shortlisted names, will be a first for the industry and also for the regulator, as it takes on average three to four months of vetting,” the person cited above explained.
The speed with which the central bank will clear the appointment of the CEO for the bank comes as its inspection of the books of the city-based lender has not found anything else amiss. Giving it the confidence to let the bank be run on its own, the source added.
After Kathpalia and Khurana quit, the bank is being run by an RBI-approved three-member executive committee comprising its consumer banking head Soumitra Sen and the chief administrative officer Anil Rao.
While Kathpalia had resigned on April 29, his deputy Khurana did so a day before. Both had cited moral responsibility for the scam that was in the making for at least seven years, for the decisions to leave, which came in well after seven weeks since the crisis came out. Both have also been banned by the Sebi from the markets for insider trading—they had pocketed over Rs 157 crore from selling bank’s shares in 2023-24.
While Rajiv Anand is currently the deputy managing director of Axis Bank, Anup Saha is the managing director of Bajaj Finance, and Rahul Shukla is the group head of commercial and rural banking at HDFC Bank and is on a sabbatical from the largest private sector bank.
The 59-year-old Anand has over 35 years of experience in the financial space. He began his journey at Axis Asset Management Company in 2009 as its founding chief executive. In 2013, he moved to Axis Bank as the president of retail banking with a board position. In 2018, he was appointed to lead the wholesale banking division and since December 2021 he has been serving as deputy managing director, overseeing wholesale banking, digital banking, marketing, and corporate communications. Anand is due for retirement next month from the bank.
Bajaj Finance’s Anup Saha has over 30 years experience, of which 25 have been in the financial services space. He was with ICICI Bank for 14 years ending 2017 when he moved to Bajaj Finance. Over the years, he managed a spectrum of businesses--credit cards, auto loans, mortgages, and structured finance--contributing significantly to the largest and the most profitable non-bank’s retail growth strategy. He was elevated to the top job only in April 2025 for a five-year tenor.
The 55-year-old Rahul Shukla of HDFC Bank has joined the bank in 2018 to head its corporate & business banking. With over three decades of industry experience, Shukla began with Citibank in 1991 and held several senior roles, including head of corporate banking for South Asia and was also part of its global corporate banking operating committee.
The upcoming leadership change is seen as a crucial development for Indusind that has been in focus since early March when it was forced by the RBI to inform all stakeholders that it made accounting mistakes in the forex derivatives books for several years and that it would have to make provisions to the tune of 1.35% of its networth as of December 2024 when it was Rs 64,000 crore.
But the bank on May 22 said while announcing the March quarter earnings that the losses were much higher at Rs 2,329 crore. It had a net profit of Rs 2,349 crore in the year-ago period. Most of the loss was due to the impairment in its forex derivatives book, which the management first said would be only around Rs 1,600 crore. The lender reported net interest income of just Rs 3,048 crore in Q4 a whopping 43% less from Rs 5,376 crore a year ago.
Indusind came under intense regulatory scrutiny following a series of financial and regulatory setbacks on March 10, 2025 when it was forced to admit a massive accounting lapse amounting in its forex derivatives portfolio. This was followed by findings from an internal audit that uncovered that it erroneously recorded Rs 674 crore as interest income from its microfinance segment. Additionally, the review flagged another Rs 595 crore under unsubstantiated balances classified under other assets on the balance-sheet, raising concerns over its corporate governance practices and financial reporting standards.
The Indusind shares are down close 40% from its 52-week high of Rs 1,514.95 recorded in June 2024. Following the accounting scam announcement on March 10, the scrip had plunged to a low of Rs 605.40 on March 11, losing as much as 27% on a single day.