Ethical banking: A hacker's short story

FROM his office on the tenth floor of the Chinese Banking Corporation Building on Jalan Douglas, Goodwin could see vast expanses of virgin rain forest that began less than a mile away. The town nestled between the sea and the trees on borrowed land that the jungle would eventually reclaim if civilisation ever failed. Dark storm clouds hung over the low hills to the left and the grey mist beneath them told him it was already raining hard. In the park below, the trees rustled in expectation of the coming downpour.

"The bank is pleased to loan you $20,000 on the terms we have agreed, Mr Lim. I wish you every success with your venture. Please sign here."

The young Chinese leant over Goodwin's desk, then shook hands with the banker.

"Thank you Mr Goodwin. We are very excited. We are most grateful that you are supporting us."

Goodwin really enjoyed this work. He liked meeting the clients, going through their proposal and their figures, suggesting sometimes a different approach. He had been head of the regional office for ten years now and had no plans to leave. He was a quiet, unassuming man with interests in music and mathematics and he assumed he would stay in Borneo until retirement. The local music society had recently elected him chairman and the bank regularly sponsored performances by visiting musicians.

He was proud of his achievements and he had no ambitions to rise higher in the organisation. At university he had read mathematics and come second in the tripos — his dissertation on asymmetric cryptography was awarded an alpha. He had spent his twenties at the code breaking centre in Cheltenham back in England, working on Russian ciphers. He had enjoyed this job initially, but resented being paid so little for such specialised work. The codes used by the Eastern European powers had anyway become impossible to crack and he thought he would find more satisfaction in the financial world. Eventually, he left the centre for a new career in banking.

He joined the London office of the Chinese Banking Corporation and rose rapidly through its ranks. For a while, he was head of the security division. Using his mathematical and computing skills, he constructed the bank's security protocols, as internet banking became all the rage in the 1990s. But he was also good with people and, after a year or two, applied for a transfer to a merchant subsidiary. He liked meeting prospective clients and negotiating the terms of a deal.

He had always wanted to travel. Jobs in the Far East were advertised from time to time and after a number of unsuccessful applications, he was posted to South East Asia. He quickly learnt the business and rose to be regional manager of the Bank, which by then had become the third largest in the world by market share. He followed the investment guidelines from head office, but it was difficult to clinch any really major deals from where he was in Borneo. The market was flat for long periods and he failed to attract the business of the multinationals which took only a passing interest in the country.

His approach was therefore to invest in medium size regional companies which offered a respectable rate of return. They were generally reliable and produced a steady income for the Bank. It was satisfying to know that many local people had jobs thanks to his financial backing. These companies employed local managers and knew how to keep their staff. They registered all their foreign workers properly and paid them regularly, unlike some of the multinationals who could be more cavalier. He was fascinated by the idea of ethical investment and, over the years, read many books on the subject. Were ethics and the interests of shareholders compatible? He developed ideas of his own and published articles in the financial press locally and internationally.

It was absolutely true that he much preferred working with fledgling firms and small partnerships. He liked to help young men and women, who came to him with an idea. They'd tell him they'd identified a gap in the market: they wanted to produce school uniforms or offer gardening services to one of the oil companies or recycle old computers for those who couldn't afford the latest laptop. Sometimes he'd take a half-baked proposal home and turn it into something more realistic. He gave his customers tutorials in sound financial management, for which he never charged. He sought to foster enterprise and he laughed off the cynicism of his colleagues.

"What hairbrained scheme are you backing this week, Trevor?" they would ask him in the canteen.

"Oh you know, we're going to sell banana leaves to Indian restaurants in Surbiton,"

One day, at about 10 o'clock in the morning, his secretary phoned through to say that a Mr Hawkins from Hong Kong Office was in the lobby.

"Bad news Trevor, I'm afraid. They want you out. Your profits are down again. I am so sorry to do this to you, but the twelfth floor boys have had enough!"

"Ah, I see..."

"I am so sorry, but you must have known it was on the cards. You've been acting more like a branch manager in Guildford than the CEO of a major bank."

"Yes, I suppose it couldn't last."

"You know the routine of course. I've got to stay here while you clear your desk. We've already cancelled your passwords so — no point in going near your machine."

A letter was faxed to him at his flat the next day:

"I regret to inform you that we are unable to renew your contract at the end of the current term. We are downsizing our operations in South East Asia, where returns have been only modest. We plan to concentrate on South America and other emerging markets, where we can expect higher margins. Larger accounts will henceforth be handled from Kuala Lumpur. Your employment will officially terminate on July 31st, but, given the sensitivity of our operations, you will no longer be required at your division with immediate effect. We thank you for your service to the bank and wish you every success in the future."

It was not entirely unexpected. In a recent phone call, one of Goodwin's managers in Hong Kong had hinted that the top brass were planning some "restructuring". For several years they had been bombarding regional CEOs with economic forecasts and suggested investment strategies, but he had refused to be concerned, since the reports showed little knowledge of local conditions. They were not a basis for the day to day decisions he faced. He had sent the boffins at Head Office the figures they wanted in the hope that would keep them quiet. For a long time he heard nothing. The top brass seemed to have forgotten about his little corner of southeast Asia.

He didn't recognise the name at the bottom of the letter. No doubt he would have, if he had read the in-house magazine more frequently. There had clearly been some changes at the top. The bank wasn't really interested in small businesses any more. Of course it wasn't. Why should it be? And it was stupid to be sentimental. It existed for its shareholders and was managed by young whipper-snappers who wanted to make as much money as possible.

He recognised that his termination was a perfectly natural and inevitable phenomenon — to think anything else was self-delusion. He was at least grateful to the bank for having cured him of that. It wasn't really interested in the people in it or its customers. It had to make money. That was all.

Two weeks latter in a cybercafé at Dubai airport, Goodwin logged onto the website of the bank's stationery subdivision in Petaling Jaya. He entered "guest" as his user name and "password" as his password. He opted to buy ten reams of photocopying paper and some buff envelopes. On the "terms and conditions" page, he clicked on the B of CBC in the bank's logo. A small login screen appeared. He typed "administrator" followed by the date of the Wall Street Crash. Then he transferred three billion US dollars to the account of an organisation that cleared land mines in Cambodia and seven billion to various Aids charities in Africa. To ensure that the transfers could not be traced, he uploaded a rather clever virus he had written from his pen drive that obliterated the whole day's transactions.

The Brunei Times