Wanted: NRB, NBL top executives

The Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) has initiated process for appointing new chief executive officers for both the Nepal Bank Limited (NBL) and Rastriya Bajinya Bank (RBB). "We will place advertisements in a day or two," said a source at the NRB. The two banks with majority shares of the government are currently under the Financial Sector Reform Project.
NRB staffs have been handling the management of NBL for the last two years while the term of the current management of the RBB is expiring in mid-January. The management of the two banks was at the hands of a foreign company for five years before it was handed over to Nepali management two years ago.

At present, a team led by Janardan Acharya is handling RBB management and NRB director Binod Atreya is the chief executive of NBL. About a year ago, NRB had sought proposals from the bankers for the top post of the NBL, however it failed to find one.

Although Anil Shah, outgoing CEO of Nabil Bank and Janak Shah, former CEO of Agriculture Development Bank Limited had sent their proposals to the NRB expressing readiness to handle the country's oldest bank, the central bank board recently disapproved them.

NRB is preparing to appoint CEOs for NBL and RBB on the basis of resume without seeking any initial proposal and the World Bank, which has been supporting the financial reform project, also has given a nod. The bankers selected on the basis of their resume then will be asked to produce a financial proposal. "If the cost is higher than what the central bank has fixed for the person selected as first choice, the CEO will be appointed from among those who are in the second or third place in the ranking," said the source.

The financial reform project was initiated seven years ago with a loan support of Rs. 7 billion from the World Bank and United Kingdom's Department for International Development (DfID). NBL has failed to get an independent CEO. However, its bad debt significantly decreased to 5.65 percent from above 50 percent. Likewise, Non-performing loan (NPL) of RBB has also decreased to 15.42 percent from above 50 percent. The capital fund of both banks is negative by 36 percent in case of RBB and 22.83 percent in case of NBL, though they have succeeded in reducing NPL.
Source:eKantipur