The Indian Banks' Association will soon have a private sector banker steering its operations. The managing committee of the association has selected H N Sinor, joint managing director, ICICI Bank, to be its chief executive & secretary.

Post-nationalisation of banks in 1969, IBA's day-to-day functioning was always headed by public sector bankers. This time round, however, the managing committee decided to break from this norm. The IBA, which is the apex service organisation for the banking industry in the country, was set up in 1946.

The present IBA chief executive and secretary, K C Chowdhary's innings comes to an end on June 30. Chowdhary took up his position in IBA after retiring from the Central Bank of India as its chairman and managing director on May 31, 2000.

Sinor will be retiring from ICICI Bank by this month-end. Prior to joining ICICI in July 1997, he was the executive director of the Central Bank of India.

Sinor started off his banking career with the Central Bank of India in 1965 and moved to the Union Bank of India in 1969. He was appointed as executive director of the Central Bank of India in 1996.

Both Chowdhary and Sinor declined to comment. The IBA is charged with the responsibility of ensuring that the ground rules and code of ethics on healthy competition among banks is adhered to.

It has a mandate on behalf of bank managements to conduct negotiations with bank unions /associations on wage and other personnel matters and carries out studies on issues relevant to banking.