Rollercoaster! In the bankers’ vault: Financial Express 12th March 2023

 Banking discourses are always serious and focus on areas such as capital adequacy, asset quality, and fintechs more recently. But what goes on behind the banking walls and bankers? This is something we know little of; and it is here that Tamal Bandyopadhyay tells us all in a book, curiously titled  Rollercoaster. The title can be misleading as it can convey the impression that the book is all about various crises in the banking sector, especially as the history of banking in India is replete with several episodes. But Tamal has a different spin as he talks about bankers in general and his experiences in this world.

Tamal is probably one of the most respected journalists in the field of banking and gains entry to all offices of bank CEOs quite easily. If this is not impressive, he also manages to talk to those on Mint Street. Add to this his continuous monitoring of these big stars; he has gotten to know about not just how they operate but also their eating habits or fascination for footwear.

He is able to provide the reader with several stories, exposing along the way the idiosyncrasies of the characters. So what does he do?

He starts off in a rather dry manner on how he started his journey as a regular journalist, and while the reader may wonder what is going on, he takes us to the cupboard of the publication he worked with, which had copies of board papers of a public sector bank. Yes, these papers used to leak out through photocopies as the board comprised a member from the unions in the Eighties. From this point, he takes us through three main sections and ends with stories of bankers through different time periods and their travails.

Tamal provides some insights on the relations between PSBs and the members of the joint parliamentary committee (JPC). His take is that members of the JPC are those whom the government cannot accommodate as ministers. But being in the JPC gives them the status of a minister. Hence, when a meeting is convened, a PSB becomes the sponsor and has to provide hospitality. The members are normally not interested in the proceedings and prefer to go sightseeing or meet friends when the meetings are on. Their level of awareness can be gauged from an incident where a PSB head of a Tokyo branch was asked as to what was he doing to spread  ‘rajbhasha’ in Japan.  

We all have strong views on demonetisation. The advocates talk of it as being a visionary step, while the other side thinks it was not an intelligent idea at all to begin with. But bankers have their story of trauma, and here Tamal narrates a story. Bankers had a harrowing time trying to manage customers with varied emotions. There was no protection for them against fraud, and they had to manage this transition with little staffing. The author writes it would have been fair for the government to have rewarded all bankers. The incident of a banker who found rules had been changed in the short window of his bio break will make the reader smile.

Tamal has three interesting sections on public sector bankers, private bankers and RBI governors. He talks of the misuse of power of unnamed PSB chiefs and the rather feudal structure followed here. He talks of a lot of interference from the top, which, however, has stopped since the middle of the last decade. Also, he writes quite a bit about how the positions at the top are rigged, which means not just currying favour from politicians, but also payments being made through brokers. (Brokers had a big role to play in getting clients too and took a cut in the interest rate charged). These brokers are also called merchant bankers. He admits that all this stopped when the BBB—Banks Board Bureau—was constituted, which streamlined the appointments process.  

Interestingly, he does not have any good stories to share about public sector bankers. It is possible that they were less willing to engage in conversations with the author or they just lacked gravitas to attract attention. But he has a lot to talk of private bankers and doesn’t shy away from taking their names. The two disgraced bankers of ICICI Bank and Yes Bank have already had their stories told, which are distasteful. But could this be happening in other private banks, stories that have not yet come out, is the question that the reader may ask?

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There is a lot of eulogy for chiefs of HDFC Bank (on which the author has written a book earlier), IDFC Bank, Axis Bank and Kotak Bank. The author mentions some quirks of these people, like the second in line of a bank being forced by the CEO to take his ferocious dogs for a walk in Lonavala, or another one making them walk on hot coal as part of leadership training. These could be surprising to the reader.

Tamal is bang on when he concludes his chapter on private bankers by saying that some of them never encourage a second line to foster. This stems from the fact that they are keen to carry on forever. While the author does not name these star CEOs, one can know whom he is alluding to if one studies the tenures and history of those mentioned.
The third section on RBI is also insightful. One gets to know what happens on those high floors as he writes about various governors and their personalities. Some of them as deputy governors would be nervous when they were called by the governor. Also, the reader gets a sense how governors in general maintain a distance from even the deputy governors, and protocol is followed for entry and exit to the governor’s cabin. There are some stories on the wives of governors who were obsessed with the garden on Carmichael Road or held regular bhajans to keep the gods pleased.

This is a book that provides for interesting reading. One is never disengaged and the style of storytelling keeps the reader hooked. Interest in this book will extend beyond the banking community to the corporate world. While the title may not be quite appropriate for the subject, the book is definitely a different proposition.

Rollercoaster: An Affair with Banking

Tamal Bandyopadhyay
Jaico Publishing House
Pp 340, Rs 499