Banking, between the lines

An arcane subject like banking has been brought to life in 'Roller Coaster' with all the elements of a fictional account-the characters, drama, and intrigue

Roller Coaster: An Affair with Banking

Author: Tamal Bandyopadhyay

Publisher: Jaico Books

Pages: 314

Price: Rs 499

It’s hard to find an exciting tale about banking. References from literature are few. Phileas Fogg begins his journey in Around the World in Eighty Days following a bank theft that turns into a bet. Charles Dickens mentioned a few episodes related to banking frauds in his weekly journal Household Words, the most famous being the one in which Richard Vaughan tried to eat fake bank notes to destroy evidence.

Banking doesn’t attract much literary attention because of the arcane nature of the work. Tamal Bandyopadhyay, though, has a different take. Unlike his columns, which focus on detailing banking for the common people, his book focuses on the people involved in the world of banking. The tale is also his life story, covering his transformation from a university lecturer to a reputed banking reporter. But the highlights are the quirks of the many people he has come across during his journalistic career. Roller Coaster: An Affair with Banking has all the elements of a fictional account—the characters, drama and a life story. There are attention-grabbing titles such as “Chinese cuisine, Punjabi food or Gujarati Thali”— all pseudonyms for bribes. Since Mr Bandyopadhyay connects each chapter to the previous one, the story is difficult to follow if you skip a chapter within a section. In fact, the author doesn’t easily let you jump to the parts where he details the lives and times of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governors.

The book has four sections. The first one focuses on Mr Bandyopadhyay’s career in journalism and his first brushes with the banking industry. The second details the behind-the-scenes functioning of banks and tales of quirky bankers. The third focuses on the RBI as an institution and the people who made it in the post-liberalisation era. The fourth contains two different diary entries from a branch manager and a bank chairman and managing director.

Given Mr Bandyopadhyay’s previous work, even this narrative account does not shy away from highlighting the problems in banking processes. Ultimately, Mr Bandyopadhyay also ends up discussing problem areas of banking. He offers an unvarnished account of Yes Bank’s Rana Kapoor’s dealings and does not mince his words in explaining the issue of pay structures at public sector banks. In one section, for instance, he takes a stance on the perks available to public sector bankers drawing comparisons with their private sector counterparts. But he also details exceptions in each instance, giving each a fair representation.

When it comes to governors,  though, the account is more serious.  Mr Bandyopadhyay is not pulling his punches, but he cautiously details the working of each governor starting from the post-liberalisation era. He highlights the changes made by each governor to the institution and the system, sprinkling the account with anecdotes from their lives. The section on bankers has more personal details, interspersed with Mr Bandyopadhyay’s observations of the system.

Mr Bandyopadhyay starts the RBI journey with the 18th governor of RBI,

S Venkatraman, and goes on to discuss the working styles of all governors, including the incumbent Shaktikanta Das. He also discusses the relationship between the governors and the government and the independence of the institution.  In the case of Raghuram Rajan,  Mr Bandyopadhyay clears the air surrounding his resignation and brings new facts to light about the short tenure of Urjit Patel. The focus is not just the governors, but the deputy governors as well. He sheds light on the relationship between governors and deputy governors during this period.

The diary entries are more personal, and Mr Bandyopadhyay has chosen his protagonists carefully. The stories would have been told and retold often with regional variations, but the theme is common. The first one is the life of a branch manager during those 50 days of demonetisation, whereas the second one is of the frustrations of a bank’s chairman and managing director with the system.

Mr Bandyopadhyay also pieces together an account from closed-door meetings and off-the-record interactions to highlight the functioning of some public sector banks.

For those even remotely connected to the world of banking, many names would be obvious even if the author does not wish to reveal them. For others, they are faceless people who teach you something about the banking system. Mr Bandyopadhyay does the rest of the job in highlighting the problematic aspects of the business. In the end, it is not what the stories tell that hold the lessons, but what they hide. The author needs to be credited for making people read between the lines. At the very least, it presents the personal side to bankers, who are often dehumanised and vilified for faults that are often not their own.

Bandyopadhyay is a consulting editor with Business Standard