Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nominated Amir Yaron as the next head of the country's central bank, Bloomberg News reported.

Yaron, a finance professor at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, will succeed Bank of Israel Governor Karnit Flug, whose five-year term is set to end in November.

His specializations include asset pricing, econometrics, international finance and macroeconomics.

The recommendation must be vetted by a government committee, Bloomberg said.

The announcement comes as the central bank prepares to tighten its policy in the first quarter of 2019. The central bank, which kept its key rate steady at 0.1% this week, last reduced its interest rate in early 2015.