Privileged Life Of A Banker In The Good Old Days

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I attended a lunch last Sunday for alumni of one of my previous employers, a well-known international bank. I was reminded that it is a bank when I had to sign and initial various boxes on forms before I could be admitted!
It seems our bankers are still the careful, conscientious, people who insist on dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s. They know their customers and are trustworthy custodians of our assets and liabilities in these perilous times. Or not.
Every lunch guest had left the bank through resignation, retirement or by means of the many ways banks “right-size” their workforce, often through very generous severance packages many actually yearned for.
I left the bank over 21 years ago in a rather conventional manner; perhaps that’s why I was invited. There was a rather detailed dress code, probably meant to ensure that only my sore thumb, if any, stuck out like a sore thumb, and not any other appendages of my increasingly generous anatomy.
This was the first formal gathering of alumni of any of my previous employers that I’ve attended since my retirement. I’ve been reluctant to attend them as I’ve worked in many jobs across many sectors, so my loyalty, and my nostalgia, is often pulled in many different directions.
Generational ties
That was not a problem for many at the lunch, for whom the bank was the only place they’ve ever worked at. There are many instances of two or even three generations of a family who have worked at the bank in the past.
Bankers tend to be quite stiff and smug. The institution sees the world of business as a messy and low-rent place, populated with rowdy characters whose lack of grace is only matched by their excess of cunning (and money).
A bank’s job then was to bring some order into the chaos, and some of the money into their vaults.
Pick of the girls
Employees of banks, especially foreign banks, used to be a highly respected class. A man working there could have the pick of their kampung’s girls to marry, and were often helped to do so by their employers, through soft loans for marriage, houses (and house renovations), cars, motorcycles and even household appliances.
Life was good back then for bankers.
I wore ties then. I hated that. My first job was in semiconductors, the cool industry of the 1970s and ’80s. We wore jeans and t-shirts and the only time we tucked in our shirts was when attending a job interview elsewhere. Ties took some getting used to.
Decline of foreign banks
That particular bank has produced many talented people who went on to big jobs in Malaysia and elsewhere. For a long while, it was literally the backbone of the economy, albeit one whose strings were pulled from a far-way foreign capital.
In those days, there were many small local banks and finance companies (remember those?), with foreign banks at the top of the heap.
It’s now the local banks, after a series of consolidations (probably still continuing) that are the goliaths while foreign banks struggle to compete within our many banking rules.
Bankers’ privileges
Surprisingly, I enjoyed myself at the alumni lunch, being among many pleasant people who deeply felt the bank had been one of the highlights in their life, something I doubt many of today’s bankers feel.
Back then, pledging your entire career to one bank wasn’t much of a sacrifice. There were privileges aplenty in return. For a long time the bank just needed to send enough dividends occasionally back to the headquarters, and the staff, especially the expat bosses, got to live the good life.
This bank was among the first to stir things up back then. Automation, computerisation and outsourcing took place, as well as many other activities known by buzzwords — invented to convey the message that working life must get harder.
Rise of local banks
When growing revenue got tough, costs were cut to maintain our margins. But that got tiring and after six years, I left.
Protectionism (justified in my mind) hobbled the progress of foreign banks. And for many, misadventures at their HQs elsewhere didn’t help either.
Local banks started to get their acts together and began to dominate the industry.
This bank’s HQ also decided that the occasional pittance remitted back was no longer good enough. The far-flung subsidiaries needed to be reined in – products had to be consistent, systems and processes optimised, policies aligned and enforced, and the price of not meeting those standards was a break in your dream of lifelong employment.
Not so cushy now
Thus, we have the banks of today – less elitist perhaps, but also more calculative and pushier. Some of the critical skills needed today – blockchain, analytics as well as digital marketing skills – come from outside banking. This, among other factors, helped to upend the laid back culture of yesteryears.
Life as a banker now isn’t as cushy as before. The lunch group – apparently the largest group of Malaysian bank alumni – had been there during the heyday of the foreign banks, and they knew that.
We reminisced about the old times, with stories full of gaps because of faulty memories and missing comrades. We had pictures of those who had passed on in the many years since the last alumni event, back in the pre-pandemic days.
Absent friends
I was especially saddened to see two faces no longer with us. The first was my expat boss who died after a long illness: a tough, honourable former Royal Marine who was sadly cut down in his prime.
The other was his driver, and the driver for many other CEOs at the bank. He was ever smiling and cheerful, grateful to be working with such a great employer. I remember him forever trying to blend into the walls when you walked past him in the corridor, as befitting (in his mind) his lowly station on the bank’s totem pole.
Such was the hierarchical, even feudal, culture then. But worry not – in his kampung, he would have been looked up to and respected for working with the best bank in the country. He probably married the prettiest girl in his kampung too, and must have had no regrets with his life.
Gravy train no more
I was one of the few people who came in, did their time (six years) and left at the same level. My career didn’t go up or down, it plateaued, part of 35 years of career plateauing that I was fully happy with.
I was there when things started to change: company cars disappeared, and employees were given cash allowances instead; fancy bank bungalows closed; younger people filled up more top positions; and we basically became a national branch of a big foreign bank.
I got tired of waking up at midnight for conference calls, often on topics of little value. The big bosses of such banks, as well as those of many other large, “glamorous” multinationals, became merely general or territory managers chasing after revenue targets with limited input in the big strategic decisions.
I had a lot of fun elsewhere, including working with crazy entrepreneurs and other CEOs who took it upon themselves the power to smash things up and rebuild them, ignoring the faraway, if any.
Many good people
But I don’t regret my years in that bank. There were many good people there, from CEOs to company drivers and all else in between. I got to experience some major transformations, even if much of it wasn’t positive if you were in the boondocks and not at HQ.
And I have no regrets for attending the reunion event either. I’d do it again (if I’m invited back) although there will be fewer familiar faces, and more on the outside who think we’re old delusional fogies from a bygone era.
By then, we old timers won’t be big and strong any longer, but the old shared experiences would guarantee we’d stay forever friendly. -FMT

PS: The very evening after the alumni lunch, one of the luminaries who attended passed away. May his soul rest in peace. Life is fleeting. Don’t say no to lunch with friends.The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.

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