Rana Talwar, first Indian to head MNC bank, no more

Rana Talwar, the first Indian to head an international bank - Standard Chartered Bank - died on Saturday. He was 76. Talwar was among the foremost of Indian bankers who made it big on the global stage and was acclaimed for revolutionising banking in some aspects that drew accolades from global giants such as Citigroup's former CEO John Reed.

A homegrown banker, Talwar made giant strides in Citibank and was among the earliest to move to the international stage in Citi at Singapore. He was a pioneer at cross selling of financial products.

"He (Talwar) developed a new collection of mutual funds, and they became a great success in Singapore," Reed had told Harvard Business Review. "He had the notion of transferring that success throughout the Asia Pacific region, and it worked." Citi adopted it as a management practice and called it 'success transfer.'


Post-retirement from banking, Talwar was active with a private equity fund called Sabre Capital. He bailed out the struggling Centurion Bank of Punjab and later merged it with HDFC Bank.