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This can be a well-known story, so pardon the repetition. Guru Nanak was as soon as stated to have visited a village of egocentric and impolite individuals. Whereas leaving, he blessed them to flourish on their land. Because it occurred, he then reached a village filled with sincere, hard-working, and sort individuals. This time, Guru Nanak blessed them with spoil on their land. His disciple needed to know the rationale for this obvious contradiction. Guru Nanak stated that if the village full of excellent individuals didn’t flourish, they would go away it, and there could be so many good individuals spreading goodness on this planet.

After I consider Citibank shutting down its shopper financial institution in India, I’m reminded of this story. Over the past yr, because the sale progressed and plenty of Citi bankers moved out to totally different organisations, it was very attention-grabbing for me to look at how they have been quietly and confidently taking with them their work ethics, tradition, and infrequently, shoppers. Then again, it was equally attention-grabbing to look at the crew on the bottom proceed to work arduous and retain the enterprise—its individuals, processes, and values. As they transfer to Axis Financial institution as we speak, it looks like an excellent time to reminisce.

It couldn’t have been straightforward to announce the sale of a enterprise, which, at one level within the historical past of Citi, would have justified its ‘Insomniac’ tagline. I personally had no thought of the sale after I moved out of Citi in September 2020. On reflection, the well-known Citi course of was in place to guage ‘all choices’. Whereas it could not have been seen to us, just like the proverbial fish underwater, an outright sale was as actual an possibility within the face of accelerating regulatory and know-how prices as some other. Objectively talking, I can see the advantage of the choice, though I really feel unhealthy that with each exit, shopper banking on this nation turns into a race to the underside due to a scarcity of competitors. Approach again in my consulting days, I used to joke that India had third-world revenues and first-world regulatory prices. At some stage, I suppose it boils all the way down to that trade-off.

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