Arundhati Bhattacharya, former chairman of State Bank of India, joined Mukesh Ambani’s company as Additional Director (designated as Independent Director) on the board of Reliance Industries Limited for a period of five years beginning 17 October 2018.

It may be underlined that Ms Bhattacharya is the first woman from outside the Ambani family to be appointed to the board of Rs 07.28 lakh crore company. Until now, Nita Ambani was the only woman director on RIL’s board. Bhattacharya was also the first woman to be appointed as SBI chairman. She joined SBI in 1977 and in the same year Dhirubhai Ambani had laid the foundation of Reliance Group.

Reliance Jio and SBI had, in the first week of August 2018, signed a MoU further deepening their partnership to bring enriched digital banking experience to their users. It may also be mentioned that Jio Payment Bank was registered immediately after the announcement of demonetisation of Indian currency in November 2016.