The Incredible Banker Read online

  On the way out Deepak looked at the office one more time. Sexy office! Wonderful decor, he thought. He could see about thirty people furiously working on their computers as if their lives depended on how soon they finished what they were doing.

  'And, Mr Sarup,' Rajib's call made Deepak stop and turn back.

  'One more thing...Citibank has already made me an excellent offer. They will pick up all documents from me and deliver the cards here in office. See what you can do better than them. I have almost closed the deal with Citibank. Swati called me yesterday morning and I felt that she was quite convincing. That's why I decided to speak to you. Think about it and get back to me quickly. I do not have much time.'

  Sure, sir,' nodded Deepak. 'Can you please tell me a little more about the Citibank offer? What are they doing for you?'

  'They will collect all employee data from me. I will collect the forms from my employees and hand over the documents to Citibank. Symbiotic Technologies will confirm the employee residence and office address that we have in our records. On that basis Citibank will issue the card to the employees. For employees who have been with us for less than six months, Citibank will do their regular verifications and issue a card. But for employees who have been with us for more than six months there will be no verifications.'

  "That sounds interesting. However, I think we will be able to better that,' said Deepak, even as he turned and headed towards the main door.

  As soon as they stepped out of the office, Gautam looked at Deepak and asked, 'What is your view, sir?'

  'Arre, this is a brilliant deal. Sure shot hai yeh toh. We must not let this go out of our hands. Let's screw Citibank this time around. Let's talk to Bhalla and the credit department when we get back.'

  But he knew it was not going to be easy. Citibank was known to be a real pain in the back when it came to letting go of a deal. They would chase it as if their life depended on it. Deepak had crossed paths with them many a time in the past. Even in his previous roles in branch banking and wealth management he had seen that they were very aggressive and undercut for every big deal. In lending they were known to approve loans that GB2 would never even dream of approving. They would lend to customers whose profiles were suspect and whom every other bank would hesitate in giving out cash. Deepak knew that Symbiotic was not going to be an easy deal. But he needed it. And needed it very badly at that. 'Chariots of Fire' depended on it. Didn't it?

  Back in office, he called the referee. 'Hey, referee, how are you, my friend?'

  'I am good...waiting in the lobby of Global Infocom for an interview. I have been sitting here for the last forty minutes, waiting. I seriously wonder why these guys take so much time in meeting with candidates!'

  'Best of luck, my friend. Achcha listen, I wanted to tell you something. We met with Symbiotic today. Met that Rajib Sen.'

  'Oh, you did? Good, good. It's a nice company. I was very disappointed when they didn't hire me.'

  'How well do you know their background? They are asking for the moon. I was wondering if it would be worth putting up a fight to get this approved.'

  'Oh, I am sure it is! And Citibank would not be chasing this deal for nothing. They are normally smart in these things,' the referee reminded Deepak.

  'You mean we are not? Thank you for the compliment, my friend.'

  'Haha...that's not what I meant. You know what I meant, you idiot.'

  'How do I get to know more about their background?' As soon as Deepak asked the question, he heard some commotion in the background. Something was going on at the referee's end.

  'Listen, Deepak. I have got to go. They have called me inside. Why don't you Google on the company? You will find some details. I am sure they have a website too.'

  'Oh, yes. Best of luck.' Deepak hung up wondering how stupid it was of him to not have thought that earlier.

  He quickly logged into his laptop and googled on Symbiotic Technologies. It showed up a number of links. Many of them were just news articles and press releases. He clicked on the link which was the home page of Symbiotic Technologies. It was a brilliant, hi-tech website. The jazz blinded him. He was very impressed – completely sold on the company. The history part talked about the company's twenty-year legacy. The list of clients seemed impressive. The geographical spread was large. They had operations all over the world. He had to do this deal – there was no way they were going to lose this to Citibank.

  Later that evening when he met Savitha and they were driving back together, Savitha brought up the topic.

  'How did Symbiotic go?'

  'Arre, yes. I wanted to tell you about it. There was too much chaos today...just slipped my mind,' Deepak replied to her.

  'Growing old, baby?' she asked with a naughty smile playing on her face.

  'Shut up now. I am sure you don't need evidence to prove that your baby is not growing old?'

  'Haha...kidding, love.' She quickly made amends.

  'Hmm...I know. Symbiotic was chaotic. The guy wants the earth and the moon. He wants us to issue cards to his employees on the basis of his confirmation. He will give us their application forms and supporting documents along with income details. He wants us to issue a card to them on that basis alone.'

  'How many cards?'

  'He claims over 1,200 cards but my guess is around 600-800 cards.'

  'Which is big.'

  'Well, it is,' Deepak agreed.

  'Will he give us the KYC documents?' Know Your Customer documents were collected from customers for all new relationships by every bank. It was a regulatory requirement and was prescribed by the RBI.

  'You mean address and ID proof?'

  'Hmm...,' Savitha nodded.

  'We can ask him. We can tell him to give us the application forms, a confirmation from the company on their address in the company records, salary details and KYC. He would ideally have all of these with himself and wouldn't need to harass the employees.'

  'Sounds good.'

  'You think this will fly internally?' Deepak asked.

  'You mean within credit?' asked Savitha.

  'Yeah.'

  'Let's try. The only hitch for you here is the verification which is under my control. And if we strongly believe in this deal, the same can be waived.' The unit which Savitha was handling managed the entire verification process. GB2 would send agents to the customer's residence and office usually to confirm if the applicant's office address and residence were authentic. These also served as a verification of the applicant's living standards and hence were a critical input into the lending approval process. However, the vendors doing the same were controlled by Savitha's team.

  'How should we position it to Bhisham?'

  'Deepak, Bhisham will ask his team. If we are waiving verifications for the employees, he will ask me. I will strongly recommend, given the employee profile and the company background. He should agree.'

  Deepak smiled. 'It helps to know people in credit, doesn't it?'

  The plan was made. Deepak would put the proposal up to Bhisham, who in turn was expected to refer it to Savitha. It happened exactly as they had planned. Deepak gave a glossy proposal to Bhisham, which was liberally littered with literature lifted directly from the company's website.

  Bhisham glossed over the proposal. Seeing the link in the proposal, he clicked on it and checked the website. It was impressive. 'Finally we seem to have got our act right in the credit cards business,' he said to himself. As expected he forwarded the proposal to Savitha with a request to get back to him by the end of the day.

  Savitha saw the mail from Bhisham and smiled to herself. Wasn't she too smart? She had predicted it just the way it was unfolding.

  She didn't need to spend time doing any research. In fact even before Bhisham sent it to her, she had drafted a response for him. All she did was to retrieve the mail from her drafts folder and press 'send' on her mailbox. She also marked a bcc on the mail to Deepak. If there was a time lag of four hours between Bhisham's mail to her and her res
ponse, it was only to make sure that Bhisham got the impression that all the required diligence was done and nothing was short-circuited.

  Dear Bhisham,

  This is with reference to the proposal received from the cards team on issuing credit cards to employees of Symbiotic Technologies in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Bangalore.

  I would like to confirm that I am comfortable with what is being recommended subject to the following:

  a) These offices have to be visited by senior members of my team and visit report to be filed.

  b) KYC documents should be provided. Exceptions to this have to be approved by either you or me.

  c) Credit Bureau check should be done on applicants prior to issuing any credit card. If any applicant does not have any record on the bureau which indicates that he has not taken any loan/credit card from any other lender, we will do a complete set of verification on him.

  d) Any employee with less than six months vintage in the company will not be issued cards under this program.

  e) These cards should be tracked on a monthly basis and any adverse performance needs to be highlighted immediately.

  Subject to these, I am fine with what has been recommended.

  Regards,

  Savitha

  On the basis of this mail, Bhisham responded to Deepak with a confirmation of the proposal, subject to the conditions laid out by Savitha. Deepak was only too pleased because the mail sent to Bhisham was in fact drafted jointly by Deepak and Savitha. Only Bhisham didn't know about it.

  The same evening Deepak sought a meeting with Rajib Sen. And the same day the deal was clinched. Symbiotic Technologies tied up with GB2 for issue of credit cards to over 1,200 of its employees. Deepak agreed that Symbiotic would hand over all the application forms, KYC documents and salary details to GB2 in consolidated lots, instead of GB2 collecting them from individual customers. In return GB2 would process them within three working days and deliver the cards in bulk to the office of Symbiotic Technologies, to a designated individual in the Human Resources team. The HR team would then hand it over to the employees and get an acknowledgement from the customer to GB2 within a week, failing which the cards would be cancelled.

  As a part of Symbiotic Technologies' green initiatives worldwide, the statements were all e-statements, that is, no physical paper would ever go to the customer. They would all be sent to the designated email ID of the individual card holder.

  This was a big win for GB2 as a result of which Deepak scraped through his targets. In October he managed to issue 6,342 credit cards of which 900 were from Symbiotic. More than 10 per cent of his card acquisitions that month came from Symbiotic. None of the other regions came even close to their targets. It was a big win for Deepak and he owed it almost entirely to his friend – the referee.

  Deepak won the 'Chariots of Fire' contest, and that too by a wide margin. No other region even qualified for it. In the eyes of Manish Bhalla, Deepak was a star. A rising star who held the potential to help him meet all his aspirations!

  In November too, aided by a couple of similar leads from the referee, Deepak was able to meet all his targets. He was the only regional head to come out on top. Everyone else was struggling.

  Deepak owed a lot to the referee for his success. Without his leads Deepak would have fallen short of his numbers. The friendship between them blossomed to the extent that they became inseparable. Savitha was the third cog in their wheel of life. Blissfully unaware of the referee or the presence of Savitha, Radhika was going about her life under the impression that Deepak, her hardworking husband, was a dutiful family man.

  After the starry performance in October and sweeping the 'Chariots of Fire' contest, Deepak had manfully walked up to Bhalla and told him that instead of enjoying the prize-winning foreign trip in November he would rather do it in January, at the end of the stressful quarter. Bhalla had agreed.

  In January of 2009, the 'Chariots of Fire' jamboree headed west to the pristine slopes of the Alps in Switzerland. Deepak was a part of the team as a winner. Thirty-two people from the cards team, including people from sales, credit and operations went on that trip. Deepak had cleverly manipulated it in a way that Savitha was also a part of the group. Wasn't she the one who helped him clinch Symbiotic along with a few others?

  Interlaken was the chosen location for the four-day offsite, as it was the most Indian of all the Swiss sites. While the entire team returned after four days, Deepak and Savitha stayed back. They decided to head to the south of Switzerland and spend some time together before they returned to India. They had stopped bothering about what everyone else would say or think long back. They were extremely open about their relationship. For the public eye, they did not share the same room. Otherwise, they were as much together as they could be.

  The referee was waiting for them at the airport when they landed back in the wee hours of a Monday morning in January. Both were surprised to see him. He did not look good. The creases on his forehead were quite a far cry for his carefree self. Deepak was quite amazed to see him like that. It looked as if he had not slept in a long while. The stubble on his face had grown long. Both of them realised that something was wrong.

  'Arre, referee, what are you doing here?' Deepak asked him.

  'I came to pick you guys...haven't seen you in, like, ten days-was beginning to miss you folks.'

  'Shut up! Tell me what happened. You look so weird.' Deepak then added with a touch of concern, 'Is everything ok?'

  'Yes...kind of. Come, let's go.' He picked up one of Savitha's bags and led them to a waiting taxi. Referee didn't own a car, so he had hired a taxi to take them back home.

  They first went to drop off Savitha at her Bandra residence and then headed towards Chembur where both of them stayed. Along the way Deepak kept asking him what the problem was but he did not tell him anything. He kept deflecting the issue. Finally, they reached Deepak's apartment complex.

  Deepak got down. The referee, too, got down to help him with his luggage. The building watchman came running, too. The referee helped him off-load the luggage from the boot and stood there waiting for Deepak to finish giving instructions to the watchman. 'Take it up carefully. There is lot of breakable stuff in the bags,' Deepak instructed him. Once the watchman moved out of the scene, Deepak turned towards the referee.

  'So you will not tell me what happened.'

  'Nothing, Deepak. It's ok. I will manage.'

  'Hmm...whatever. Do tell me whenever you feel like. I hope it is not serious.' Deepak started digging into his hand bag which he had kept with himself, presumably because it had his passport, foreign currency, etc. After rummaging through it for a few seconds, he pulled out a small box. He closed the bag and gave the box to the referee.

  'Referee, my friend, this is for you. A small token for all that you have done for me,' Deepak said.

  'What's this?'

  'Open and see. Tell me if you like it.'

  Both of them moved to the building lobby even as the referee tried to carefully remove the wrapping paper.

  'It's ok, you can tear it. I am not too sentimental about it like many others.'

  'I was just being nice since you brought it all the way from Switzerland.' The referee tore open the wrapping paper.

  'Wow!!' he screamed in delight as he saw what was inside the box. His eyes nearly popped out. 'What? Why did you buy this, Deepak? You are mad...this would be very expensive, isn't it? Idiot! You didn't have to do it,' he rattled off without waiting for Deepak to respond. Deepak just stood quietly, smiling.

  'Expensive...yes but not if you go Dutch. It's a gift for you from me and Savitha.'

  'But why?'

  'Referee, you helped me a lot in the last three months. You have no idea what you have done for me. If I am where I am today, it's because of you. My Switzerland trip was because of you. The 'Chariots of Fire' victory was because of you. This is just a small token to tell you that we love you and value what you have done for us. Thanks, buddy. You mean a lot
to us.' Deepak put his arms around the referee and hugged him. There were tears in his eyes.

  Once Deepak released him from his embrace, the referee stepped back and slowly opened the box and took out the nice brand new Omega watch. 'Wonderful!' he squealed in joy like a child. He remembered the discussion with Deepak and Savitha not so long ago about the watch. He would have settled for the Titan watch, but Savitha had said, 'Why Titan? We will buy you an Omega.'

  Probably because Omega was his favourite. Even in his one room tenement, he had three posters of Omega watches. Maybe that's why Deepak bought it for him. He knew his fetish for Omegas. He had never had enough money to buy an Omega. But whether he would have bought an Omega even if he had enough money, he wasn't too sure. There were other pressing needs.

  'Thanks, Deepak. I will call Savitha and thank her too. This means a lot to me. My first Omega watch in my life. And I owe it to you.'

  'Hmm...enough of melodrama now, my friend. Tell me what was wrong with you. Why were you looking as if your house was struck by lightning?'

  'In fact it has been almost struck by lightning, Deepak. Remember I told you about my family in the tribal village a hundred miles from Midnapore? My sister, who got married last year, has come back home. Her husband's family has sent her back. They have made a demand of three lakh rupees. I don't know how I will manage that. I need to go back and settle her.'

  'When did this happen?' Deepak was shocked.

  'The day you left. I was in fact waiting for you guys to come back so that I could tell you and then leave.'

  'You could have called us and told us. Waiting for us was not that important, idiot. We would have come back and called you.'

  'Yes, but there is no mobile signal at the place where my parents stay. There are very few land lines which don't work half the time. If you think of roadside villages as rural India, you should come there to see. That's real tribal land. If one phone conks out, it does not work for months. You have to walk miles to get to another phone. No roads, no facilities. It's a chaotic life there. And no one in our government is even bothered about their welfare...about doing something to resurrect their lives, to bring up their standard of living and to give them the basic amenities.' His eyes had become red while speaking. He was very emotional about the issue.