Mumbai: A K Batra and P N Venkatachalam have been appointed managing directors of State Bank of India (SBI).

Earlier, Venkatachalam was deputy MD and group executive (national banking group [NBG]), and Batra was deputy MD and group executive (corporate banking group [CBG]). The two top slots were lying vacant ever since S Govindarajan and Y Radhakrishnan retired as managing directors.

NBG, to be headed by Venkatachalam, provides banking services to customers through two retail and commercial nationwide networks. NBG has over 9,000 branches under 14 administrative circles.

CBG, now under Batra, operates through three strategic business units corporate accounts group (CAG), leasing and project finance. While CAG deals with the top corporates in the country, the project finance unit handles infrastructure and core sector accounts and the leasing unit takes care of the leasing business.