KUALA LUMPUR: Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) governor Tan Sri Dr Zeti Akhtar Aziz yesterday hinted at retirement when her term is up in April next year, but did not discount the possibility of returning for another term if requested to.

“Sixteen years is a very long period and I’ve been very privileged to have had this opportunity in my career to make a contribution to this country.

“I am truly grateful for it,” she told a press conference to announce Malaysia’s second-quarter gross domestic product numbers yesterday.

Zeti, who will turn 68 later this month, said she had always aspired to write a book.

Zeti also noted that there are solid internal candidates to be the next governor.

“My three deputies are also members of the board, and the rest are private-sector individuals ... I believe that we have strong candidates from internal as well to head the central bank,” she said.

When asked whether she would consider continuing her current role for the sake of “national service” after her term ends next year, Zeti said she would cross that bridge when she comes to it.

“There is a lot more to be done ... I would like to see more [being] done in the migration to electronic payments and mobile banking, for instance,” she added.

If she does retire next year, it would mark her 16th year of service as central bank governor and 35 years in the central bank. She is the second longest-serving governor, only exceeded by the late Tun Ismail Ali, who served for 18 years from 1962 to 1980.

Zeti is highly respected in the local and global financial communities, and is known as one of the best central bankers globally.

She was named as one of Global Finance’s “World’s Best Central Bankers” last year, with an “A” rating on its Central Banker Report Cards.

During the peak of the Asian financial crisis in 1998, Zeti was appointed acting governor of BNM, leading the team on exchange control. She was later made deputy governor for two years, before being appointed to her current post on May 1, 2000.

“We put in place more than 10 important legislations during my term in office, did three series of organisational transformation [of the central bank] and all the other things that we have done to transform the financial sector,” Zeti recalled.

There has been intense speculation that Zeti has been under pressure to quit due to her and BNM’s part in a task force investigating a money trail linked to debt-ridden 1Malaysia Development Bhd.

“There’s no truth to these allegations against me personally and against the bank. Many of these allegations are made anonymously,” she said.

“We will seek to identify who they are and will take legal action. Right now, we don’t know who they are. We have some ideas and follow-up leads to who they are, but they have been anonymous so far.”

Talk has also circulated last month that Zeti was having health problems and had resigned from her position. But this was quickly dismissed by the central bank’s corporate communication department.

“I am absolutely on no medication. I have never taken any medication and I wish that I remember to take the multivitamins which I always forget to take,” said Zeti, who was in a jovial mood yesterday.

This article first appeared in digitaledge Daily, on August 14, 2015.