Any American above a certain age working in finance remembers The Bankers, Martin Mayer's 1975 bestseller. But since then Mayer has become something of a cause célèbre of all things bank-related. Then he became chairman of a New York school board.
And now he has reprised his opus, and 1997's The Bankers (not as you might expect,The Next Generation) is a comprehensive look at the future of retail banking, with a special emphasis on clearing and settlement.
Inexplicably this is a best-seller.
His views on international investment banking are idiosynchratic. "The future of us banking is very much as a retail market," he says. Of more interest is the tonsorial fixation running through the book: everyone who's anyone in American banking is introduced with a line or two about his sartorial style or hair.
Take the introduction of Richard Pratt, a chairman of the Home Loan Bank Board in the Reagan era: "Black-haired, bull-necked, muscular, unscrupulous in controversy and terrifyingly intelligent, a rider of motorbikes, Pratt quickly saw..." Or "a square-jawed, tanned, rather military-looking, almost bald, fiftysomething entrepreneur named Robert Whalen," who turns out to be the founder of Founders Bank in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania.
Euromoney advises you look yourself up in the comprehensive index, and brace yourself. Mayer may have an unflattering view of your appearance, based on a chance handshake at a World Bank meeting. Felix Salmon