HSBC has emerged as one of the best and strongest banks during the course of the global financial crisis, and one of the few banks that has not taken government handouts. While its peers have fallen like ninepins, particularly the UK banks, HSBC has emerged as one of perceptibly safe banks. This, particularly, when it had rapidly grown to become one of the largest global banks over the course of a decade. To Stephen Green goes the credit of having wrought a large part of this change, starting with his tenure as CEO of HSBC since 2003, and thereafter as Chairman since 2006. After all, Green was felicitated as the ?epitome of the sensible banker demanded by Gordon Brown? in a profile in the UK Guardian. Green is also considered to be one of the financial leaders in the City most committed to charity and philanthropy. From all accounts, then, he is a good man. On top of all this, Green is an ordained priest, a so-called NSM, Non Stipendiary Minister, or, as irreverently referred, Not Short of Money. Therefore, when Green writes a book expanding his views on the transformation of the global economic, financial and social ecosystem, this should be accorded significant gravitas and is likely to stand out amidst the rash of books and monographs expounding their worldviews post the global financial meltdown.
The start of the book Good Value: Reflections on Money, Morality and an Uncertain World (before the research into the background of the author), however, led to some trepidation; I wondered if I had stepped into a Ludlum fiction. ?Lake Como. Spring 2008. April. Eliot?s cruellest month. Twilight falling. From the shore, the lights of Brunate in the distance are just beginning to flicker into life. Shadows lengthen in the gardens of the Villa d?Este?. I then proceeded through a quickfire series of changes in locales: Milan, Oxford, Kolkata, Kayole (Kenya). But I gradually settled into the rhythm of the narrative. I began to see where Green might be headed with his jigsaw approach.
Most chapters are an easy read, written in very readable prose, but not more thought provoking than your well written history-of-humankind book. One of the most captivating reads in the book is the few pages on the history and development of London, obviously due to the familiarity of Green with the locale. And in a way this is appropriate. London (and probably more broadly the US) are emblems of the theme of globalisation that is the recurring motif in the author?s narrative.
There is only a relatively brief diversion into the global financial crisis, and that was inevitable given the enormity of this episode. But this is not a book on the effects of the financial crisis; this is treated only as a spur on the predominant theme of globalisation. In the aftermath of the financial crisis, I had been more engaged in issues of regulation, market structures, incentives and other more arcane matters of finance. These issues are touched upon only briefly, even cursorily.
But, in the final analysis, it is the human, or groups of humans, that decide the course of events; their values, moral compass and commitment that shape history. It is the final chapter ? ?In my end is my beginning ?? ? that addresses this. This is Green?s second book, the earlier one Serving God? Serving Mammon? (which I have not read) and presumably takes the arguments forward, particularly in the final chapter. It was probably a bit of a coincidence that Green?s book was almost contemporaneous with an encyclical ?Caritas in Veritate? (roughly, Love in Truth) by Pope Benedict XVI, one of whose themes was the genesis of the financial crisis in evolving social and economic affairs. Mr Green?s book can probably be considered to be a Protestant equivalent. The assertion that ?my interpretive prism is Christian? lends credence to this somewhat facetious observation.
In the end, though, I was left unrequited in large measure. Green and people like him, as well as the institutions they lead, seem to be in a small minority in the global scheme of values, ethics, balance, vision and an empathy with humankind. The Wall Street Journal a few days back reported that ?as banks regain footing, their swagger ? return[s]?. The forces of globalisation ? ?commercialisation, urbanisation and individualisation? ? will resume in force very soon, and so will all the associated goods and bads. The world will become more uncertain, and the tensions between money and morality will only exacerbate.
The reviewer is Senior Vice- President,Axis Bank