Page 142 - A Banker Down the Rabbit Hole

41. Getting overseas posting

I came to know that our bank had one dozen overseas branches also.

The natural curiosity was who manned and managed these
branches. It came to light that Managers were Indian Expatriates
selected from among the Managers in India. The other junior staff
was recruited from the local population. The next (natural) curiosity was
how I could get posted there and what the chances of this happening
were.

A bit more research revealed that those officers were posted overseas
who had experience of working in a Foreign Exchange Business Branch
or in Credit Department of a Branch or Corporate Office and sometimes
a few Faculty Members working in the Staff Colleges of the bank. I kept
the above research in mind for long but could not get any such work
experience in a decade. Meanwhile, I got two opportunities to appear
for the interview for overseas posting. The performance in the interview
was good each time but the result was equally bad both the times. Third
time, we heard that there would be a written test for short listing of the
candidates for a final interview for the overseas posting.

The story behind holding a written test for the first time
An Indian Expatriate officer posted in dealing room of an Indian bank at
Singapore committed an error that resulted into adverse chain effect on
some banks involved in that transaction. The authorities of Singapore
during the investigation found that the officer concerned did not have
adequate knowledge and experience of handling such transactions in the
dealing room. They wrote to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the banking
regulator to ensure that the officers selected for overseas posting should

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