Quiet handover

Nosy Tarsee noticed that nobody at the bank giant threw a party or leaked a memo. The board met on a Wednesday, raised its hands and blessed a change that has been underway since July.

Nosy Tarsee’s little bird says the wholesale engine of the bank, the sector that lends to the biggest names and handles their cash, trade paper and deals, gets a new captain on the first day of the new year.

The name is no stranger. He already sits at the board table, chairs a leasing joint venture with a Japanese partner, sits on the board of the bank’s China subsidiary and, since 1 July, has been number two in the very sector he will now run.

Twenty-nine years in the business involving posts at the trading floor, the treasury desk, branches, corporate accounts and overseas operations. The appointee is a banker who has seen the market from the dealing room and from the customer’s side of the desk.

With a treasury man about to run the lending house. Will pricing get sharper? Will corporate borrowers notice? Cross-selling currency and rates products to boardrooms is every bank’s old dream. It may finally have a champion who speaks the language.

Then there is the incumbent. The disclosure was silent on where that executive goes. Nosy Tarsee’s bird did not chirp. Watch the subsidiaries. Watch who chairs the investment banking arm and watch who inherits the leasing joint venture when the new sector head lets go.

Note also the board. In May, committee seats were shuffled and his Trust Committee seat went to the vice chairman. It looked like housekeeping then, but it looks like preparation now.

The president, meanwhile, has spent the week talking about discipline, buffers and capital. Continuity, in other words. It is the word bankers use when they would like you to stop asking questions.