NOTHING CHANGES, EXCEPT EVERYTHING ELSE

No new banking licences had been issued to foreign banks since the end of the Second World War, so the news the Chicago bank had been granted such a licence attracted great excitement among other international banks with designs on Japan. But the Japanese government insisted nothing had changed: this was merely a swap of licences, and the number of foreign banks would remain the same. It would be another 4 or 5 years before the government would begin to relax their policy.

Our takeover occurred in March in the presence of a bevy of accountants and head office types from both banks. Suppressing my true feelings I made a determined effort to achieve a smooth and pleasant transfer. We had redecorated the premises and Toyoko had personally created a huge flower arrangement in the banking hall to mark the occasion. Our frugal Dutch ways had precluded farming out the job to one of the ikebana flower arrangement houses.

But our foreboding about our new superiors proved justified. Below the good-luck messages and a surface bonhomie lurked an uncompromising layer of strict new controls and suspicion-based rules of a kind we had not been used to. While nominally leaving V. and me in charge of the branches and echoing the authorities’ cry that ‘nothing had changed’, the new bosses came down heavily on us, assigning one of their Chicago Vice-Presidents to Tokyo to oversee our every move from a separate office. They also started sending over teams of auditors who would arrive unannounced on Monday mornings to subject us to what we felt were humiliating surprise audits. I still remember the usual entrée of the senior auditor, a big and corpulent man, flanked by two tall cronies, all in dark suits. Looking me straight in the eye he would hand me an official letter with the words Tou are under audit!’ I always felt he meant ‘under arrest’.

The atmosphere during the first two years was tense and frequently poisonous. Nothing I said was accepted at face value, and I sometimes lost my temper with them, surprising myself. Distrust hung in the air like thunderclouds.