Tamilnad Mercantile Bank CEO Krishnan resigns after the lender makes a cab driver a 'billionaire'

Tamilnad Mercantile Bank makes its cab driver accountholder in Chennai richer by Rs 9,000 crore for a while. Half an hour after the cab driver joins India's 'billionaire club', the bank realises its mistake and deducts nearly all the money, except Rs 21,000, from his account. Days later, managing director and chief operating officer of Tamilnad Mercantile Bank, S Krishnan, puts down his papers. Krishnan writes in his resignation letter that he made his decision due to 'personal reasons' and makes no mention of the bank's blunder of transferring Rs 9,000 to the cab driver's account.

It is hard to believe that such a high-octane drama can happen in real life.

But it actually happened in Chennai last month when some unbelievable events unfolded one after another. 

On September 21, a cab driver, Rajkumar, a native of Neikkarpatti village near Palani, suddenly got a message from Tamilnad Mercantile Bank that Rs 9,000 crore had been credited to his bank.

He passed the message for a prank call only to find later that it was indeed from the bank he held his account with.

Assuming that he had hit a real time jackpot, Rajkumar made no delay in transferring Rs 21,000 to his bank account.

Half an hour after transferring money, the bank realised its mistake and deducted the remaining money from Rajkumar's account.

The cab driver, who was a billionaire for some time, was now a pauper with only Rs 105 in his account. 

The next day, Rajkumar got a call from Tamilnad Mercantile Bank, asking him to return the remaining Rs 21,000 that he had transferred to his friend's account.

But here is when Rajkumar sensed the opportunity.

He made a deal with bank officials for two conditions: he won't return Rs 21,000, plus he will get a car loan from the same bank.

Bank officials budged and accepted both his conditions.

Nearly a week later, on September 28, the news came that the CEO of the bank had resigned.

It looks like the Rs 9,000 crore fiasco costs him dearly.

The CEO, in his resignation letter, didn't cite any such reason.

He writes, "It has been about thirteen months since I joined the bank. In these times, we have taken various measures to fortify the bank and make it future-ready. These include Business Processing Engineering, a Digital transformation, Strengthening the systems and procedures to make it more robust, enhancing the skillset, strengthening the risk matrix, imbibing the compliance culture, etc."

"With these various measures taken, I am sure that the bank will reap the fruit sooner than later. Though I still have about 2/3rd of term to go, due to personal reasons, I have decided to resign as Managing Director and CEO of the Bank. However, in as much as the bank has only one whole-time director, I will seek the guidance of RBI in this regard," Krishnan writes in his resignation letter.

It is hard to assume what made him resign really. Tamilnad Mercantile Bank made a cab driver a billionaire for some time, it will surely go down as one of the most unbelievable tales in bank folklore.