Contributor of Banking Liberalisation

It is true that the 1991 budget changed the face of the Indian economy, he changed the norms and enable private banks to be born. He changed the rules of the game, but there are many players as well who contributed largely in the uplifting the Indian banking sector from the shambles. N. Vaghul is one of them.

N Vaghul, former chairman, ICICI.

He ushered in the new financial segment.

N Vaghul did not build the institution, but he knew who could. If ICICI Bank and its affiliates have not only survived butt thrived and its executives are part of the Indian financial services landscape today, it is undisputed because of - Vaghul the visionary. Vaghul was a commercial banker who started his career in State Bank of India and became the youngest chairman of a state-run lender - Bank of India - at 44. He quit banking in disgust due to interference from bureaucrats.

But things changed when Rajiv Gandhi needed someone with financial expertise, then RBI governor RN Malhotra called upon Vaghul to head ICICI. He turned a staid term-lending institution into a vibrant financial powerhouse with interests ranging from stock broking to lending to infrastructure, with insurance and advisory rolled into the mix.

Many financial supermarkets have come into existence since liberalisation in 1991, but the thought leader for all of them was undeniably Vaghul. If IDBI, UTI and SBI all ventured into various wings of financial services, they all took a leaf out of ICICI's strategy laid down by Vaghul.

His ability to engage comfortably with people at various levels without being conscious of the hierarchy made him an acceptable and popular leader.

In pre-liberalisation days, when the public sector was the monarch of the economy, a job in SBI was considered an achievement. Those who got such jobs stayed with the organisation until retirement. But Vaghul quit to take up teaching at the National Institute of Bank Management when a militant Shiv Sena union was poised to make trouble for him as HR head of SBI. The party at that time had an anti-south Indian platform.

The Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India (ICICI), as it was known then, was no different from Industrial Development Bank of India (IDBI) or Industrial Finance Corporation of India (IFCI). If 25 years later ICICI is miles ahead, it is because Vaghul saw no future for the lender unless it was transformed.

ICICI Bank is today worth Rs 1.52 lakh crore; IDBI Bank, which had a bigger market share in the 1980s, is at about a 10th of that, while IFCI has almost faded into irrelevance.