3 Review(s)

‘The Reserve Bank of India would like to assure the general public that Indian bankingsystem is safe and stable.’– RBI Statement, 1 October 2019Why did India’s central bank have to issue an unprecedented statement to that effect?In Pandemonium: The Great Indian Banking Tragedy, bestselling author Tamal Bandyopadhyay takes you insearch for the answer. It is a definitive insider story on the rot in India’s banking system – how many promoterseasily swapped equity with debt as bank managements looked the other way to protect their balance sheets,until the RBI began waging a war against ballooning bad loans. The same troubles quickly spilled over toIndia’s mushrooming non-banking financial companies, which were quick to spot the post-demonetisationeasy liquidity and banks’ reluctance to lend, prompting them to make the cardinal sin of borrowing short tolend long.What really ails public sector banks, the backbone of India’s financial system? Is it the governmentownership itself, or how this owner actually behaves? And just when many were rooting for privatisationas a way out, powerful bankers such as Chanda Kochhar and Rana Kapoor exposed the soft underbelly ofseemingly more efficient and profitable private banks of India.A timely and insider look at dramatic forces reshaping banking in Asia’s third-largest economy, thisbook is a bird’s-eye view of Indian banking and also a fly-on-wall documentary. A must-read to understandcontemporary India’s challenges and economic potential.