Learning what a financial total leaves out

I completed my commerce degree in 1994 and joined Nivralti Credit Cooperative in Karimganj that June. The organisation served its members and was not a bank. My first responsibilities were bookkeeping, supporting schedules and explanations for differences between records. A senior colleague taught me to distinguish an account entry from a cash movement. The distinction sounded elementary until a receipt recorded late changed the explanation of a weekly position. I learnt to retain the original date and supporting document rather than make the latest report appear tidier than the underlying sequence.

In April 2000 I became the cooperative's accounts supervisor. I managed four colleagues and prepared reports for its general manager. I was still close enough to individual records to understand why a total had changed, but I now had to explain it to people who had not handled the entries. I introduced a short note separating recurring member transactions from unusual movements. It did not predict behaviour, and I was careful not to make it sound as though it did. It made conversations about available funds less dependent on somebody remembering what had happened several weeks earlier.

I joined Tevrunsha Cooperative Bank in April 2006 as a branch finance review officer. Moving from a credit cooperative into a bank required me to learn a different control environment and the limits of my own knowledge. I did not arrive with authority over lending or investments. I reviewed branch schedules, cost records and reconciliations under the finance manager. Visiting several locations showed me that the same expense could mean different things: a higher premises cost might support access in one catchment, while an apparently inexpensive branch depended on staff covering two jobs. I began to ask what a financial comparison had left out.

My appointment as head of planning and management accounts in April 2012 gave me responsibility for consolidating the annual budget. I worked with branch heads who were proud of their relationships and sometimes sceptical of a central model. They were right to challenge a forecast that treated every renewal as an independent event. Several depositors might share a payment calendar, a trade connection or a reason to need cash at the same time. I built a review process that preserved those observations without turning informal familiarity into a promise that funds would stay. The resulting forecast was less smooth and more useful for discussion.

I became CFO in April 2019. My remit includes financial reporting, the finance function budget and the analysis presented to management and board committees. I report to the chief executive, not directly to depositors or an external investor, and I am not a statutory director. I work closely with treasury and risk colleagues while retaining the distinction between their actions and my recommendations. Our asset-liability committee makes decisions within the bank's governance arrangements; I provide schedules, scenarios and the explanation of assumptions. External auditors independently examine the financial statements. I do not describe their conclusions as outcomes delivered by my team.

One of my more difficult lessons concerned a branch proposal whose headline economics looked acceptable. The forecast relied on deposits shifting from existing locations and on a staffing model that omitted relief cover. I asked for a revised account of incremental benefit and the recurring cost of operating the location. That delayed a proposal some colleagues had supported publicly. I learnt to bring finance into the discussion earlier, before a site or opening date becomes a commitment people feel obliged to defend. A sound challenge delivered late can still be an expensive way to make a decision.

At March 2026, the bank had six branches, 86 staff, deposits of ₹310 crore and gross advances of ₹230 crore. I lead nine finance colleagues, with a ₹1.15 crore annual function budget, and coordinate the analysis of the bank's ₹10.4 crore approved operating plan for FY2026–27. These figures describe different responsibilities and should not be added together as a single budget. I am known for asking which part of an improvement is repeatable and which part depends on an event that has already passed. In a future role, I would bring that habit alongside a willingness to learn a new institution's funding model, ownership expectations and operating constraints.

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