Page 217 - A Banker Down the Rabbit Hole

Exchange Department as was mentioned in my posting letter. On
reporting to the Chief of the branch, he revealed that already another
officer had replaced the In-charge, Foreign Exchange Department about
2 months ago. He told me, "There might be some goof up at Head Office.
I have two options for you. I may approach Head Office for your new place
of posting or alternatively you may hold the charge of Credit Department
where we wanted to replace the current incumbent. "I had not worked
in Credit Department of such a large branch and the exposure had two
possibilities. One was a lot of new learning about large loans with a lot
of value addition to my profile and another was a risk of any lapse in
processing of any loan proposal and facing action by the bank. I decided
to agree to be Head of Credit Department even though "Non-lending"
was considered as "safe-landing" in Banking in those days.

A few days later, one of my relatives who was working as a Manager in
Deposit department of another bank situated nearby, came for a courtesy
call. He looked around my cabin and asked me which department I was
heading. I told him about the entire situation and my decision to head
Credit Department.

He expressed his surprise on my decision and warned me about
numerous perils of heading a Credit (Loan) Department. He narrated one
case where one of his relatives in a bank had been suspended for some
years due to lack of follow up of a loan account consequent upon which
the borrower diverted the loan funds to buy his personal properties. He
continued with a few more scary stories of people in Loan Departments
in his bank. He really scared me and sent chills down my spine. I did not
sleep well that night thinking whether I made a wrong choice in deed by
agreeing to become Head of the Credit Department.

Now I reflected on my assignments held so far. I found that starting from
day one of my first posting till last posting except a period of 5 years at
Staff College, I had handled Loans for about 12 years in aggregate. So
far, I had been safe. I was aware of some incidents of officers getting

214 | A Banker down the Rabbit Hole