Two likely candiates are: ANZ Grindlays country head and chief of personal finance services in MESA (Middle East and South Asia) Anuroop (Tony) Singh and Citibank's Ashok Dutt who was earlier heading retail operations in India and now posted overseas. StanChart's corporate and investment banking chief Jaspal Bindra can also emerge as a dark horse, banking sources said.

Talks are also doing rounds that StanChart may appoint a chief integration officer to see the merger process through and opt for a India CEO at a later stage. John Filmeridis, the current chief executive of StanChart's India operations, also heads Middle East and South Asia business as general manager.

StanChart chief executive Rana Talwar is expected to be India later this week to sort out the thorny issue.

After Sharat Anand's departure, StanChart's treasury has remained headless while Bindra heads corporate and investment banking and Harpal Duggal consumer banking. At the ANZ Grindlays hierarchy, three top slots are occupied by Rajiv Maliwal (head, corporate financial services), Rahul Khosla (head, personal finance services and retail) and KS Gopalswamy (head, treasury).

While an extreme nervousness has gripped the senior executives of the bank, at the junior and middle level employees are feeling "betrayed" by the ANZ management. "At a time when both the Australian and the Indian government are talking about closer bilateral ties, the sudden pull out from India was least expected," said a Delhi-based ANZ Grindlays executive under condition of anonymity.

ANZ will receive dividends of $500 million from the retained earnings at Grindlays in addition to the $1.3 billion in cash for the entire deal.

One-off merger cost has been pegged at $160 million over the next three years. However, according to sources, no redundancy reserve has been created to take care of shedding the excess flab of the merged entity.

"No body knows about the fate of the ANZ employees in India. They are apprehensive and nervous," said an analyst. ANZ Grindlays has an employee strength of 3,300 spread over 39 branches while StanChart has employed 1,700 in 19 branches. "There has been overlap in back-office as well as front-office operations. The merged entity would require massive staff and branch rationalisation," said an industry observer.

StanChart, which has successfully completed a Rs 165-crore voluntary retirement programme in 1999, still has about 200 excess staff at its banking service division (SBD). According to an internal estimate, ANZ Grindlays has about 1,100 staff and 600 executives surplus, taking the total excess employee number to 1,700.

"Virtually for every post there are two contenders. This will be a tough job for the HRD experts," said an analyst.

Post-takeover of Indian operations of ANZ Grindlays, StanChart will top the list of foreign banks operating in India in terms of balance sheet strength overtaking Citibank. The share of India business in StanChart's worldwide operations will also go up dramatically and India will become the second-most important centre in MESA after Hong Kong.