SBI Card refreshes its board with Anuradha Rao, Parvathy Vairava Sundaram

MUMBAI: Shareholders of SBI Card have given the nod to two heavyweight appointments, voting through a postal ballot to confirm Anuradha Rao and Parvathy Vairava Sundaram as independent directors on the company’s board.

The approvals, dated 6 February, 2026, convert earlier board appointments into full three-year mandates. Rao will serve as independent director from 13 November, 2025 to 12 November, 2028, while Sundaram’s term runs from 9 December, 2025 to 8 December, 2028. Both appointments are on terms and remuneration to be decided by the board.

The move adds serious regulatory and banking heft to the SBI Card board at a time when lenders are under sharper scrutiny from markets and regulators alike. The company confirmed that neither appointee is related to any director and that both are clear of any Sebi or statutory bars on holding board positions.

Rao brings nearly four decades in banking and financial services. She previously served as deputy managing director in charge of strategy and digital banking at State Bank of India and later as managing director and chief executive officer of SBI Funds Management. Her boardroom experience includes directorships at the National Stock Exchange of India and several non-banking financial companies. She holds degrees from Osmania University and the University of Hyderabad and is a certified associate of the Indian Institute of Bankers.

Sundaram, by contrast, is a career central banker. After beginning in commercial banking, she spent most of her professional life at the Reserve Bank of India, working across departments and locations before retiring as executive director in November 2019. Her regulatory footprint is expansive: she was closely involved in the RBI’s asset quality review between 2015 and 2017, the shift to risk-based supervision, the overhaul of the prompt corrective action framework for banks, and policy work on marginal cost of funds-based lending rates and the proposed public credit registry. She currently sits on the RBI’s standing external advisory committee for bank licensing.