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‘Will look into conflict of interest issue in Birla bank licence plea’

RBI on Thursday said that it will look at whether there is any conflict of interest arising out of a bank licence application filed by Aditya Birla Nuvo, whose group chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla happens to be on the board of the central bank.

'We have to take a view on that. This is a very recent development,' Reserve Bank Governor D Subbarao told reporters after a meeting here of the central board.

He was replying to queries on possible conflict of interest in the case of Birla group's application for a bank license.'(Kumar Mangalam) Birla has been our Director of Central Board for the last six years. So, we will have to discuss that with the government,' Subbarao said.

Birla is a nominated member on RBI's 21-member central board of directors. His group firm Aditya Birla Nuvo Ltd is among the 26 entities that have applied to the RBI for a bank licence.

In response to query, Aditya Birla Nuvo said there is no conflict of interest. 'There is no conflict of interest whatsoever,' the company's Managing Director Rakesh Jain said.

Subbarao had earlier said that 'our effort will be to make that judgement as transparent as objective... as possible...I want to say that not everybody who is fit and proper will be given a (bank) licence because we expect the number of eligible applicants will be much larger than what is meaningful number of licences we can give'.
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