A community bank in Kerala finds the church, a rival and a tycoon from Thailand all interested in its future
The tropical district of Thrissur in the heartland of Kerala has always attracted outsiders. It was here that Christianity and Islam entered India within years of their founding. But sitting right in the middle of this melting pot of cultures and heading a community bank that represents one of India’s oldest Christian denominations, V.P. Iswardas is in no mood to entertain outsiders. “My job is to focus on my customers,” the man who took charge as the managing director of Catholic Syrian Bank (CSB) last December, says. He is in the middle of a multi-pronged battle for the control of this community bank. Backed by little more than the benign presence of Jesus Christ in a portrait in his office, he is trying to ward off takeover attempts and protect the bank’s independence.
The Big Brother
For Iswardas, ironically, the biggest support would come from the representatives of the Catholic Syrian community. The CSB Protection Committee is headed by the Archbishop of Thrissur Diocese. It’s a powerful institution there. Several churches, seminaries, trusts and institutions come under it. It runs 14 hospitals, six colleges, five professional colleges, training institutes, many schools. Father Raphael Thattil, Vicar General of the Archdeocese, says the bank isn’t a mere commercial entity. The diocese, he says, is dead against any merger or the loss of the bank’s identity.
(This story appears in the 30 April, 2010 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)