ICICI Bank 2013 Annual Report Download - page 7

villages), representing over 40% of our total branch
additions during the year. At March 31, 2013, we
had about 14.9 million financial inclusion accounts
with over 13,500 villages under the coverage of our
financial inclusion plan. Our strategy is to provide a
comprehensive product suite encompassing savings,
credit and remittances to customers in rural India,
through a multi-channel network.
Our initiatives in education, healthcare and livelihoods
are delivered through the ICICI Foundation for
Inclusive Growth. In the area of elementary education,
we have partnered with the state governments of
Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh to improve teaching
and learning outcomes in the state-run schools.
This includes designing syllabi, developing new
textbooks and providing teacher training modules
for the state-run schools. In the area of healthcare,
we achieved success in our pilot programme to
provide insured outpatient care to the poor. The
Government has therefore decided in principle to
incorporate outpatient care into the flagship Rashtriya
Swasthya Bima Yojana. In the area of livelihoods, we
strengthened the functioning and reach of our rural
self-employment training institutes in Rajasthan. We
have identified skill building among the youth as a
key priority, and are working on creating a large-scale
initiative in this area.
Going forward, we will continue to strengthen our
franchise to position ourselves to take advantage
of the long-term growth opportunities arising
out of India’s economic growth, while navigating
the short term economic cycles. The milestones
that we achieved in fiscal 2013 are reflective of
this approach. Our focus will be to build on these
achievements and deliver sustainable value creation
for all our stakeholders. As always, I look forward to
your continued support in this endeavour.
With best wishes,
Chanda Kochhar
tax, with a growth of 26% to ` 96.04 billion. The
consolidated return on equity (RoE) improved
from 13.0% in fiscal 2012 to 14.7% in fiscal 2013.
• We continued to maintain a very strong capital
position that will support growth in the coming
years. We are focused on further enhancing RoE
by evaluating capital deployment across our
businesses to enhance the efficiency of capital
utilization, and pursuing profitable growth. As part
of this process, ICICI Bank received aggregate
capital repatriation of USD 100 million from its UK
subsidiary in fiscal 2013.
While achieving improved financial performance, we
continued our efforts to strengthen our franchise and
build capabilities for future growth. During the year,
we continued to focus on enhancing our customer
proposition through a combination of physical &
technology platforms and innovative product offerings.
In fiscal 2013, we added 348 branches and 1,475
ATMs to our network, taking our branch and ATM
network to 3,100 and 10,481 respectively at March
31, 2013. We also focused on increasing convenience
for customers by expanding our technology-based
offerings, including 24x7 electronic branches and tab
banking. We introduced innovative product features
such as the “MySavings Rewards” programme and the
“iWish” flexible recurring deposit product. With over
2.0 million fans at March 31, 2013, our Facebook page
not only had the largest fan base, but also the highest
engagement rates in comparison to other Indian banks.
Our endeavour, going forward, will be to continue to
build on these improvements and leverage our strong
capital base and franchise to further enhance the
returns that we generate for our shareholders.
We also continued to play a proactive role in nation
building. The ICICI Group’s current activities in this
regard range from financial inclusion to working in
the areas of education, healthcare and sustainable
livelihoods. During fiscal 2013, we substantially
expanded our presence in rural markets through a
combination of branches and business correspondent
channels. We established 152 rural branches
(including 127 low cost branches in unbanked
Annual Report 2012-2013 5