The Chairperson of the largest lender of the country, State Bank of India, Mr O P Bhatt will be taking up the post of the chairman of Indian Banks' Association (IBA) too.

Bhatt would supercede M V Nair, the chairman and managing director of Union Bank of India and also the senior most banker chief. Nair will step down from the post next week. It has been said by IBA officials that Nair had cleared it in the beginning of his term only that he will not be serving the post for more than one term as he wanted to focus more on the operations of the bank under him.

Bhatt will be in charge of this post till March 2011 when he would retire.

The Chairman of SBI will be heading as IBA chief after four years. It was last headed in the year 2005-06 by A K Purwar who was then the Chairperson of SBI.

IBA, which currently have 159 member banks, acts as an important link between banks, regulator and the government.