AmBank Group managing director Ashok Ramamurthy is resigning because he wanted to be with his family in Australia, Ambank said.

PKR secretary-general Rafizi Ramli's claim that Ashok resigned over AmBank's RM2 billion loan to 1Malaysia Development Bhd is "wrong", it said.

"Ashok has decided to return to his family in Melbourne, Australia after having lived away from them in Kuala Lumpur for several years," it said in a late statement today. 

Ashok has been with AmBank since 2007, and will after this be attached with Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) in Australia, it said. 

The bank did not directly respond to a question over irregularities with the 1MDB loan.

Earlier today, Rafizi claimed that Bank Negara Malaysia discovered "irregularities" in AmBank's loan to the Finance Ministry-owned 1MDB.

This led to the recent resignation three top ranking AmBank officials, including Ashok, Rafizi said.

Citing information from a "whistleblower", he said the resignations came after Bank Negara conducted a compliance audit on AmBank and found irregularities in its loan to 1MDB.

"The news on the AmBank leadership change passed quietly, without gaining attention of the media and the public," Rafizi pointed out.

The RM2 billion loan was given for the development of 1MDB's Bandar Malaysia project in Kuala Lumpur.

Malaysiakini is awaiting a response from Bank Negara on this matter.

Rafizi said AmBank handled more than one 1MDB deal, including a RM5 billion worth Islamic medium term notes.

"I appreciate the swiftness of Bank Negara in dealing with this issue. I am also relieved that AmBank shareholders had taken immediate decision after the compliance audit was done," Rafizi said.

However, he said, such actions were not enough because 1MDB’s risk to the entire banking sector must be explained in a transparent manner.

"I urge Bank Negara to reveal the compliance audit done on all local banks that had given loans to 1MDB so that parliamentarians and the people can evaluate for themselves how much risk 1MDB’s debts pose to the banking sector," he said.

Rafizi said that if there is "nothing to hide", the Finance Ministry should reveal the Bank Negara compliance audits to Parliament as he had submitted questions on this for the forthcoming Parliament session.