ICICI Bank 2014 Annual Report Download - page 49

Annual Report 2013-2014 47
A key objective of the Bank’s strategy is to provide access to institutionalised credit to the rural population
at their doorsteps through its relationship banking approach. The Bank provides a comprehensive range
of loan products to farmers and customers in rural areas like Kisan Credit Cards (KCC), agri term loans,
farm equipment loans, loans to Self Help Groups (SHG), commodity based financing to farmers and
business credit for rural enterprises. The Bank has leveraged unique models to offer credit to different
segments of the rural population. The Bank is also leveraging tablets and mobile applications to eliminate
physical formats and capture data electronically at the farm gate. This has resulted in provision of doorstep
services to the customer with faster turnaround time for credit delivery. The Bank has extended credit to
over a million women through over 70,000 SHGs in 164 districts across seven states and is the fastest
growing bank in the country in this segment. The Bank has doubled its overall rural customer base for
loans to over 2.0 million in fiscal 2014.
Highlights of the Bank’s SHG model
• The Bank runs the programme through a dedicated pool of 550 employees who look after servicing
SHGs spread across seven states. The Bank’s officials work with the SHGs in their villages. This model
of serving SHGs at their doorstep helps in keeping the transaction costs very low for the SHGs, by
saving their travel time and daily wages, which were earlier lost on account of travel for banking.
• An integral part of the programme is to encourage savings by the SHGs. As a first step, the Bank
opens a basic savings bank deposit account with cheque book facility for every SHG member. Based
on the saving pattern of individual SHGs, the Bank then provides an integrated savings-cum-loan
product to SHGs engaged in income generating activities like rearing of cattle, making household food
items, running small shops and handicrafts.
The Asian Banker magazine has awarded ICICI Bank under the categories of ‘Best Microfinance Business’
and ‘Best Retail Banking Branch Innovation’ at the Excellence in Retail Financial Services Awards 2014.
The Bank has also received ’Best Financial Inclusion Initiative- FY2013‘ award from the Indian Banks
Association (IBA).
Treasury
Our treasury operations are structured into three groups: Proprietary Trading Group, Markets Group and
the Asset Liability Management Group.
The Proprietary Trading Group continued to generate profits during fiscal 2014, in spite of the challenging
environment in the fixed income market. The group also contributed to the structural development of
the market by participating in new products like interest rate futures and exchange-based online trading
platform for corporate bonds. The corporate bond desk continues to be ranked among the top three in the
overall league table rankings for private placement of debt according to the Prime database.
The client-facing Markets Group offers foreign exchange and derivative solutions to clients and continued
to be a major player in this segment. These products and services are offered to various users as permitted
by extant regulations. The Bank provides global coverage of markets with a detailed knowledge of local
markets. We provide our clients with regular market updates as well as quantitative and qualitative
research on topics related to macroeconomics and financial markets. Some of the awards received by the
Bank in this segment were ‘Best Structured Products House, India’ as part of the Structured Products Asia
Awards 2013; Best Overall Domestic Provider of FX Services, Best Domestic Provider for FX Research
& Market Coverage, Best Domestic Provider for FX Products & Services and Best Domestic Provider for
FX Options in India’ as part of the Asiamoney Corporate FX Poll 2013. The Bank was also recognised as
the Derivatives House of the Year, India at The Asset Triple A Private Banking, Wealth Management and
Investment Awards 2013.