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This is the big idea I bring home with me from Washington, private banking, Boot Hill Style, the missing link in our markets, tailored to our customers’ needs but at our price, the last of the old-fashioned margins, boy, we make a mint. I always fancy the idea, a guy in the Bankers’ Club explains it to me over a second martini, Herbie, he says, just pretend your bank is a Boeing 737, well then, you give some of the customers antimacassars, and metal cutlery instead of plastic, and a complimentary service of domestic champagne, and charge them several times the regular fare, now is that good business or do bears go to the bathroom in the woods? Until now I never figured out how to apply it to our markets, our clients like their creature comforts but are kinda picky about margins, but it is meetings time again and off I go to Washington to deliver my keynote speech to the g30, it plays well except with old Camdessus, he does not buy my forecast that the imf goes bust, all right, Michel, I ask him, how come you want new capital and more liquidity when every other bank has them coming out of its ears? Well, after this Paul and Geoffrey and I and some of the committee adjourn for lunch, and the talk varies to Jim and his new plan to stamp out corruption, no World Bank money for countries that are not straight up, and do any of us think this can fly? I say I know just how the Bank tackles corruption, a whole heap of guys get together in the gleaming new office they build for themselves, and hold meetings and form study groups and in the end write a report and print it on glossy paper in five languages and figure that the job is done, if I have my hand in the till 6,000 miles away in Africa this does not frighten me too much. Well, I get told, we must do something for these Hippies, which is this year’s new buzzword and stands for Highly Indebted Poor Countries, they get that way because they are poor in the first place and McNamara and his band lend them too much money on dud projects, and since this money is lost and gone forever, all the lenders can do is take credit for writing it off. On that note the party breaks up, it is time for your boy to hit the old Connecticut Avenue trail, and sure enough when we come over Rock Creek Park what do I see but the longest limo in town drawing up outside the Sheraton and Shoreham too, and out of it steps a guy I once do business with, he is the finance minister of Ngawa (formerly Swiss Equatorial Guinea) which is a Hippie if ever I see one, I figure he must be here to plead poverty and have his debts forgiven, and with that the penny drops. The McNamara years are good years for guys like him, all they need is a plan and a dam and the money rolls in, some of it builds a new airport and a superhighway to connect it with the presidential palace in case they need to get out in a hurry, and some of it gets diverted here and there along the way, so that when they do get out they find some money waiting for them. Naturally those commissions impose certain extra costs on the projects the lenders think they are financing, which is one reason they do not break even if they ever get finished, these guys find the way to short their own country at everyone else’s expense, you can see how this gets up Jim’s nose. Me, I figure it for the perfect business opportunity, if these guys can make money out of us we can make it out of them, they are the customer base for Hillboot Strictly Private Banking. I plan to offer them every facility, bearer certificates, gold ingots, numbered accounts, total security and discretion, it is a cakewalk, underneath all the fancy wrapping the service is no more than deposit-taking old style, where what the bank offers is a building like a fort and a vault where a customer can leave his money and hope to find it still there. Already I plan a marketing campaign for next year’s meetings, what other business has its entire customer base represented in one spot, and even the first-class air tickets paid for, courtesy of the imf. As for Jim’s new drive against corruption, I figure this works for me, first of all as an advertisement, in case any minister or central banker out there in the bush does not yet figure out what is in it for him, and then to show how our expertise is needed, nothing so crude as a backhander passes muster any more, instead the client uses one of our approved schemes, it is tomorrow’s version of the plan and the dam. Of course I keep my private banking project private, but I do talk to a Hong Kong investment banker who sees opportunities there, he plans to get the new regime to sell the Independent Commission Against Corruption to the highest bidder, or the bidder that he recommends, if he gets the mandate he can retire. So all we need now here at Moorage is the antimacassars and the silver cutlery, our girl orders them from Aspreys, the champagne we have already, but I plan on a doorway leading out into Coiners Alley, and beside it a brass plate like the Swiss private banks have, no name, just an initial h. Sure if Jim ever hears of this it riles him, but the moral is these are competitive times, even for the World Bank, it does not run the only game in town any more, nowadays we are all looking for market solutions, and a market solution is just what Hillboot Strictly Private Banking represents, especially for us. Between you and me, Mom, there is one more kick in this which I need not stress to our clients, if they somehow forget their account number, or do not make it down the highway to the airport, then we hang on to the money for safe custody, the Swiss make a good thing of this for 50 years until someone kicks a fuss up. Me, I figure to be more discreet, much love from Your private banker son [Herbie] Herbie is opening an account for Christopher Fildes Herbie is opening an account for Christopher Fildes |
