THE proposal was sent hurriedly to Jakarta in the run-up to the end of the year. It was sent from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to the office of Bank Indonesia (BI) in Jakarta, Thursday two weeks ago. It seemed that Khazanah Nasional Berhad, the sender, had an important proposal relating to a merger of two large banks that it owns: Bank Niaga and Lippo Bank.

Khazanah was certainly working against the clock as regards these two banks that it owns. Ind