A team from the North Carolina-based Nationsbank--which has taken over BankAm--has recently flown in to review the bank's retail operations. To start with, the car-loan portfolio is likely to be put on the block with both GE Caps and ICICI Ltd eyeing the business.

One senior official, BankAm's Rahul Khosla, who was responsible for managing consumer assets as also legal, finance and treasury on the retail front, has left and joined Visa International as country manager (south-Asia).

BankAm's Indian businesses are being put under the microscope to yield a much leaner corporate bank (which could be trimmed by a third) and, perhaps, a new approach to merchant banking. Within the retail segment, BankAm is reportedly planning to get out of all asset-based businesses while retaining its liabilities.

The liabilities business--sundry deposit schemes--are beingretained as BankAm has a huge corporate banking clientele to service. At end-March 1998, BankAm deposits stood at Rs 3,860.30 crore with assets at Rs 3,844.40 crore: 50 per cent of the latter is approximately estimated to be in retail.

Pulling out of the asset business would mean an exit from all loan products, including car finance, mortgages and personal finance products. Cash inflows from such a sale could possibly be used to grow the corporate bank. BankAm, sources add, has already started calling on its direct sourcing agents (DSA) to indicate the impending closure. According to the DSA of a rival bank, BankAm's agents have begun approaching other banks for getting loan franchise dealerships. A formal notice or announcement for BankAm's future retail plans is expected to be issued shortly.

All this comes as a surprise for many employees, and is a far cry from the gung-ho attitude that prevailed less than six months ago when BankAm's vice-chairperson (human resources) Kathleen "Kathy" Burke visitedthe country.

Burke, in an interview with The Financial Express, had said that retaining the best talent was on top of the bank's priority list, citing how stock-options were being given even to local staffers as an incentive. Burke herself has opted out of BankAm post-merger.

She is not the only one. By the end of this month, senior `BankAm-ers', worldwide have to make up their minds as to whether they want to be "in" or "out". So far, other heavyweights to have opted out include pre-merger BankAm chairman David Coulter and group executive vice-president Christine Garvey.

Changes are also under way to establish a new banking entity for the post-merger bank, starting with a brand new logo. The new logo will replace the by now familiar red `B' with an eagle in full flight right in the middle. "They (Nationsbank) have retained the name BankAm...and it looks as if it is going to be only thing that will around to remind us of the past", sources said.

BankAm, with just five branches in India, hasbeen one of the most profitable banks in the country. It notched up a net-profit of Rs 177 crore in 1997-98, a lot of it from cross-border deals. Among the major deals it put through are: Birla-AT&T's $283 million loan offering, Tata-Bell Canada's $75 million, Reliance Petroleum's $300 million; IPCL's $175 million convertible bonds along with Goldman Sachs; Reliance Industries $40 million and Telco's $30 million bond buybacks; lead arranger for Dabhol Power's phase-1 and L&T-CMS; and financial advisory for Hughes-Ispat. And on the retail front, exclusive car finance for Hyundai's Santro.