PNB-Nirav Modi fraud case: Who is Usha Ananthasubramanian?
Money Control
By Beena Parmar
May 14, 2018 08:12
Set for superannuation on September 30, 2018, the former PNB
chief CEO and managing director currently heading Allahabad Bank, will soon be
on her way out much earlier
Usha
Ananthasubramanian, the latest newsmaker in one of the biggest banking frauds
in India, has probably seen the most ups and downs in the latter part of her
36-year old banking career. She has been named by the Central Bureau of
Investigation (CBI) in the charge sheet relating to the Rs 13,000 crore-plus
fraud at PNB unearthed in mid-February.
Set for superannuation on September 30, 2018, the former
chief executive officer of Punjab
National Bank (PNB) and current managing director of Allahabad
Bank, could be on her way out much earlier.
After the charge sheet, the finance ministry has directed
both Allahabad Bank and PNB’s boards to “divest” the
powers and responsibilities of those named in it.
Allahabad
Bank has called for a board meeting to decide on the fate of its top serving
executive after her name appeared in the CBI charge sheet. The allegation
against Ananthasubramanian is that she failed to comply with the Reserve Bank
of India's (RBI) circulars issued by the Society for Worldwide Inter-bank
Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT) control system in 2016. SWIFT was
allegedly used by PNB officials to fraudulently issue Letters of Undertaking
(LoUs), which were used by Modi to seek loans from foreign bank branches.
Usha was
recently also grilled by the CBI on February 27 in connection with the case.
Apart from
Ananthasubramanian, the CBI has also filed charges against two current PNB
executive directors KV Brahmaji Rao and Sanjiv Sharan and other officials of
the bank.
Usha Ananthasubramanian’s banking career
Ananthasubramanian
(57), was at the helm of PNB from August 2015 to May 2017 after serving as an
Executive Director at PNB from July 2011 to November 2013.
She took
charge of PNB at a time when the bank was struggling under a heap of bad loans
while being under the RBI’s scrutiny for deterioration in asset quality.
At that time,
Ananthasubramanian took an aggressive stance on PNB’s non-performing assets
(NPAs) and wilful defaulters. She also refused to take a haircut on loans to
the notorious Vijay Mallya’s Kingfisher Airlines.
Last year, she initiated an NPA-recovery
style called "Gandhi-giri", inspired from the famous
Bollywood movie series Munnabhai, by naming and shaming defaulters, greeting
the loan defaulters with flowers and in a peaceful protest in front of the
offices of multiple borrowers, saying ‘Get Well Soon Financially'. PNB
continues its recovery efforts under this mechanism and despite managing to get
recoveries through it, NPAs still remain a concern for the bank.
However, soon
she was moved to lead Bharatiya Mahila Bank, India’s first and only government-owned
women’s bank, which got merged with State Bank of India in April 2017.
After that,
in May she was moved to Allahabad Bank as the MD and CEO and completed a year
at the state-owned bank on May 5.
Academics
She holds two
Master’s degrees --- one in Statistics from the University of Madras and the
other in Ancient Indian Culture from University of Mumbai.
The
statistics degree helped her get her first job as a specialist – an actuarial
assistant – in the country’s largest insurer Life Insurance Corporation of
India (LIC).
Ananthasubramanian started her banking career in 1982
with Bank of
Baroda as a Specialist Officer and was closely associated with
a transformation project of the bank including rebranding and innovative HR
initiatives.
Early this
year, Ananthasubramanian became the first woman to be elected as the chairman
of the Indian Banks' Association, the 71-year old industry body for banks.
In 2016, she
had also been ranked 19th most powerful women in business by Fortune India.
At this
juncture, Ananthasubramanian is at the most critical phase of her career which
may lead to more questions relating to corporate governance and less on the
bank’s performance that she may have to answer.
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