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Bankers who call the shots for future

When the global financial crisis is done and dusted, somebody will need to take stock of how Asian bankers weathered the storm. If Peter Hoflich does take up the challenge, it will make a neat companion piece to his book, Asia's Banking CEOs - the Future of Finance in Asia.

The book's release comes just over a decade after the region's banks faced their last major shakedown, the 1997 Asian financial crisis. Eleven years ago, a lack of development meant the mainland's banking system was largely insulated from the direct impact of lending excesses in other parts of Asia.

This time around, the Wall Street-led events seem much closer to home and how mainland banks make it through the turmoil will depend in part on their leaders, four of whom are profiled in Hoflich's book.

The executives are among two dozen banking heavyweights whom Hoflich groups into leadership types and analyses in terms of business strategy. The first is a 'giant', Industrial and Commercial Bank of China chairman Jiang Jianqing, a former coal miner who now heads the world's biggest bank by market capitalisation. Under Mr Jiang's watch, ICBC has hacked away much of the dead wood of non-performing loans, taken on foreign partners, launched an initial public offering and bought into offshore banks.

The author documents each of these massive undertakings and gives some background to Jiang the man but a lack of direct quotes makes the subject seem distant.

China Merchants Bank president Ma Weihua, the 'visionary' in the mainland pack, is much easier to read. The Jilin University graduate is intent on innovation and sees the internet as a way for the nimble operation to take on the bigger brands. Merchants Bank has an enviable credit card business and has the distinction of not taking on investment from foreign banks. For Mr Ma, it's all about quality and going it alone.

Of the quartet, China Construction Bank Corp chairman Guo Shuqing has spent the least amount of time at the top, but he is nonetheless secure enough to speak openly about professional and corporate difficulties. The picture that emerges is of an understated, conservative person looking for room for improvement and 'best known for ... restructuring' rather than deal-making.

The case of Bank of Beijing president Yan Xiaoyan shows that the challenges of growing beyond a city are no less complex than the tests of expanding overseas. Ms Yan has been at the bank from the beginning, when it was welded together from a group of credit co-operatives. She was there when it set about shedding its bad debt, sold off stakes to overseas investors and listed on the stock exchange.

Asia's Banking CEOs gives a thorough overview of the issues facing the four banks and those who lead them. The book tends to tell more about the banks than the people and sometimes leaves the reader wondering, for example, how the experience of being a former provincial vice-governor or a central bank official helps bankers steer their organisations towards prosperity.

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