ICICI Bank 2004 Annual Report Download - page 6

Dear Stakeholders,
The ICICI group is now in its 50th year. It has indeed been an exciting journey, from a development
bank which became a leading provider of long-term finance in India to a diversified universal
banking group present across the spectrum of financial services. The journey continues as we
make a foray into the international markets while consolidating our leadership position in the
Indian financial sector.
In 2002, ICICI and ICICI Bank merged to create India's second-largest bank. The strategic
objectives of the merger were to expand our operations across various market segments, diversify
our revenue streams and move to a more stable, low-cost funding profile. In fiscal 2003, the first
year after the merger, we focused on implementing a framework to realise these objectives. While
the benefits of the merger started flowing through in the same year, fiscal 2004 saw us achieve
these goals in substantial measure.
Several years ago, we had identified retail credit as the growth opportunity for Indian banking, and
began building our retail business. This has enabled us to capitalise on the robust growth in the
retail credit market over the last two years. The momentum that we witnessed in the retail credit
market in fiscal 2003 was sustained in fiscal 2004. We strengthened our leadership position in all
segments of this market, leveraging our strong distribution capabilities backed by credit and
analytical skills and technology. We also achieved rapid growth in our deposit base and continued
to replace ICICI's high-cost borrowings with lower cost deposits. With retail loans constituting over
50% of our loan portfolio and deposits constituting over 60% of our funding, we have diversified
Letter from the Managing Director & CEO
6
dickenson intellinetics 5690 2791 ICICI Annual Report 2004