Former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan is likely contender for the post of Bank of England (BoE) governor as the UK government looks out for a candidate to take charge from next year, media reports hinted.

Canada-born Mark Carney, the current Governor of England’s central bank, is set to step down at the end of his term in June 2019, the reports said.

He had become the first foreigner in the post in three centuries when he took up the role in 2013. UK Chancellor Philip Hammond has now indicated that his global hunt for Carney’s successor is ongoing, indicating the next Governor could well be a foreigner too, reported PTI.

“Attracting Raghuram Rajan, the highly-respected Chicago-based economist and former Reserve Bank of India governor, would be a coup,” writes The Financial Times.

The newspaper notes that the Katherine Dusak Miller Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business would bring with him “impeccable international economics and central banking experience” as well as “significant achievements at the Reserve Bank of India”.

Rajan has so far shown “no indication that he would want the job at the BoE”.

On the newspapers list of prospective candidates is another Indian-origin contender in Shriti Vadera, the chair of Santander UK and a former UK government business minister, reported PTI.

“Having been a key government figure in the financial crisis, Baroness Vadera is also credited with doing a good job in chairing a committee of City [of London] grandees, and later in helping to frame the UK?s position on Brexit and financial services,? the news agency quoted the newspaper as saying.