It is not often that a biography of an institution throws in the caste system or even Kautilya?s Arthashastra. But among other things, these disparate elements come together in the story of the State Bank of India, now the nation?s largest lender.
Banking Beyond Boundaries maps the journey of the many regional banks that came to be under the umbrella of the State Bank of India, a grouping that is now being sought to be amalgamated under the parent lender?s name. The more things change?
Abhik Ray is obviously a man not interested in change per se, but in documenting it. From the British Raj to the licence permit raj and beyond, he has chronicled the transition of the country?s biggest public sector bank in lavish detail. As a former deputy general manager at the bank, Ray?s has been a long-standing preoccupation with the bank, giving him an opportunity to gain insights into the organisation that few would have had.
A failing?understandable, perhaps?is that the book occasionally stoops to hagiography with several photographs of the now retired chairman OP Bhatt at various bank functions, and those of various finance ministers, including the present one, apart from other political masters. Yet the book is also a treasure trove of pictures of old buildings, capturing the architectural splendour of different branches, each of them matching the milieu of the place it is situated in.
Tracing the 200-year-old history of the bank, it is but natural that it records the changes in the monetary system as well, including the transition from the many currencies of the various princely states to a single, nationwide one.
Its 188 pages also contain a section on the lender?s advertisements, including the ?Banker to this Indian? campaign. However, it does not have what is arguably the slickest campaign, the television series that introduced various facets about it, like the fact that SBI has the largest number of ATMs in the country.
All in all, Ray?s is a book that could well have been a disaster but emerges as a pretty decent coffee table tome.
