A THOROUGHLY ORDINARY YEAR

For the first half of the year our expanding business and the consequent growth in our organisation demanded my full attention. We were hiring many new university graduates including some from prominent universities. I knew full well that these applicants only came to us because they had failed to get job offers from the large Japanese banks, but a few years earlier they would not even have considered us good enough as a second or third choice. We were clearly moving up the league tables of desirable employers.

We also found ajapanese advisor, recently retired from the Bank of Japan. We hoped this amakudari high official, ‘descended from heaven’, to be a great help to us in our contacts with the ministries, the central bank and the Japanese banking community. But he was a disappointment. He was the scholarly type who produced reports from behind his desk, seldom venturing out of doors. We did not keep him long, and never replaced him.

So, the negotiations with the authorities for the necessary approvals were left up to me and one or two of our senior Japanese officers. Our success in these efforts depended largely on who happened to be in charge of foreign relations at the central bank, the Bank of Japan. If he was progressive we could expect results. Two gentlemen in that post who had internationalist vision were Inoue Shiro — who went on to become president of the Asian Development Bank in Manila — and Ogata Shijuro, later deputy governor of the Japan Development Bank and a prominent member of the Trilateral Commission. There were obvious limits to what even they would or could do for the foreign banks, but our meetings were usually productive, especially when they were arranged over lunch and we could both enjoy the give-and-take. Having to work under a system of licensing and ‘window guidance’ had one advantage: it taught me the need to justify every step you take and set the right prionties.