Cabinet seals NBP's new Chief

September 03, 2026 (MLN): The federal cabinet has finally decided who will run Pakistan's largest state-owned bank, closing out a six-week leadership vacuum, even as the government keeps the name under wraps for now.

The wait may be over, officially, at least. A memorandum issued by the Cabinet Secretariat's Cabinet Division on September 2, and addressed to the Secretary of the Finance Division, confirms that the federal cabinet has disposed of its decision on the appointment of the President and CEO of the National Bank of Pakistan (NBP), circulated for approval under Rule 17(1)(b) read with Rule 19(1) of the Rules of Business, 1973.

The document does not itself name the appointee; that detail sits in an enclosure the government has not made public. What it does confirm is procedural and urgent: the Finance Division has been directed to initiate implementation "immediately" under Rule 24, coordinate with other divisions where required, and report back to the Cabinet Division within seven days of receipt.

A vacancy six weeks in the making

The appointment closes a leadership gap that has stretched since Rehmat Ali Hasnie, NBP's president since August 2023, exited after a final two-week extension expired on August 21.

In the interim, NBP's Chief Financial Officer, Abdul Wahid Sethi, was handed acting charge of the bank, a stopgap the Finance Division capped at three months or until a regular chief was named, whichever came first.

The permanent search had been running in parallel since mid-June, when the Finance Division opened applications for a "dynamic, qualified, and high-caliber corporate leader" to head the bank under Section 11(3)(a) of the Banks (Nationalization) Act, 1974.

Nine candidates were shortlisted for interview before a panel chaired by the Finance Minister in mid-August, including Zafar Masud, President and CEO of the Bank of Punjab; Imran Sarwar, Group Executive Risk and Chief Risk Officer at United Bank Limited; and Hassan Raza, Managing Director and CEO of the Bank of Khyber, the trio most consistently named as frontrunners in the run-up to the cabinet's decision.

Why it matters for the market

NBP is not just another commercial bank on the PSX board; it is the state's largest lender, a proxy for sovereign banking risk, and a stock that institutional desks track as a bellwether for governance sentiment around public-sector financial institutions.

A prolonged vacancy at the top has weighed on continuity in credit decisions, IT modernization efforts and loan-book cleanup that Hasnie's tenure was credited with advancing. Whoever succeeds him inherits that agenda, plus a board and shareholder base watching closely for signs of political versus merit-based selection.

For now, the Cabinet Division's own paperwork is the clearest public confirmation that a decision exists.

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