New Delhi: Author Pavan C. Lall, in his book ‘Yes Man: The Untold Story of Rana Kapoor’, maps how Yes Bank was born in the year 2004, when ‘India Shining’ was the slogan and the country’s economy was booming.
He also maps Kapoor’s journey from a junior employee at the Bank of America to leading Yes Bank and then his subsequent fall. Lall says Kapoor is “case study in ambition, greed and deceit”.
The book, published by HarperCollins, is due to be released on 30 January on ‘SoftCover’, ThePrint’s e-venue to launch select non-fiction books.
Lall describes the “phenomenal” rise of Yes Bank in the book, and explains how it became the fourth-largest private bank in the country, with approved permissions to operate in Singapore, London and Dubai.
He then turns to the bank’s fall, and writes about the reckless lending and allegations of bribery and corruption doing the rounds. By about March 2020, Yes Bank ran out of money, and customers were unable to get their savings out of their own accounts, leading to the arrest of the bank’s promoter Rana Kapoor. Lall looks at how multiple agencies began a probe, which is still ongoing.
Through Kapoor, Pavan Lall not only traces the banker’s journey but also asks tough questions of the banking system, its regulators, as well as the business environment which led to a point of no return for Yes Bank.
Many have praised Lall for his deep-dive into the Yes Bank story and how he had “brilliantly pieced together how and why a greedy private banker brought the house down”.
Also read: Yes Bank is a zombie, not a model for bailing out more troubled banks