ICICI Bank 2004 Annual Report Download - page 7

our balance sheet significantly. This process of structural change and diversification has resulted
in improvement in our interest margins. At the same time, we have achieved steady growth in our
fee income, reflecting the growing range and scale of our operations in fee-based products and
services for both retail and corporate customers.
The competitive resurgence in Indian industry after a process of deep restructuring has had a
positive impact on the asset quality of the banking system and is expected to give rise to new
growth opportunities in corporate credit. The renewed policy focus on infrastructure
development is also expected to encourage investment in various infrastructure sectors. We are
well-positioned to leverage the emerging opportunities in project finance and corporate credit.
We are also seeking to enhance the delivery of financial services to under-served segments. We
have created a differentiated proposition for the small enterprises segment, leveraging our
technology capabilities to offer high quality banking services. Our focus now is on scaling up this
business and expanding our geographical coverage. We believe that rural India presents an
exciting opportunity. We have achieved the regulatory targets on agricultural lending and are
looking beyond these mandatory requirements to build an integrated model for extending
modern banking services to customers in rural areas.
Our international initiative, based on an understanding of local markets and their linkages with
India, is making rapid progress. Last year we commenced banking operations in the United
Kingdom, Canada and Singapore. We will continue to roll-out and expand our international
operations in line with regulatory approvals.
Our life and non-life insurance subsidiaries are market leaders among the private sector players in
their respective segments. While ICICI Prudential Life Insurance performed well on key
profitability and operating parameters, though it recorded an accounting loss under insurance
accounting norms, ICICI Lombard General Insurance achieved underwriting profitability in its
second full year of operations.
We seek to support all our initiatives with appropriate resources - financial, technical and human.
In view of the prospects for growth in various areas of our business, we strengthened our capital
base substantially by raising additional equity capital of Rs. 32.46 billion. This has significantly
enhanced our ability to capture the growth opportunities over the medium term.
We believe that we have built a robust foundation that will support growth across all our
businesses. We have demonstrated our capabilities across products, customer segments and
markets. We will continue to leverage this platform to achieve our aspirations and deliver value to
our stakeholders.
K. V. KAMATH
Managing Director & CEO 7
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