ICICI Bank 2015 Annual Report Download - page 11

9Annual Report 2014-2015
ICICI Bank has been at the forefront in leveraging technology
including the current and emerging transformational trends
of mobility, digitisation and rapid growth of social media,
to bring value to our customers. We have leveraged our
technology capabilities to facilitate faster and convenient
processes, create best-in-class technology platforms and
reduce transaction costs. Our innovations in recent years
have enhanced our customer franchise and improved the
overall customer experience. At March 31, 2015, we had
101 fully electronic Touch Banking branches across 33 cities.
These branches give customers the ability to complete
their banking transactions at their convenience and also
access 24X7 customer service support. A key initiative
launched during the year was ‘Pockets’, a digital mobile
wallet which is India’s first digital bank, allowing users to
undertake a complete suite of banking and e-commerce
transactions. During the year, we launched a redesigned
and intuitive Internet banking website and a new mobile
website. Together with our comprehensive mobile banking
application, ‘iMobile’, these platforms are seeing robust
growth in transactions. We also launched a contactless,
‘Tap n Pay’ payment solution, which enables customers to
simply tap their cards for quicker payment transactions. We
have a strong presence in social media through banking on
Facebook, which we further strengthened by becoming the
first bank in Asia to introduce payment services on Twitter.
We have also invested in our corporate Internet and mobile
banking platforms to improve the customer experience and
to provide value-added solutions to the government sector.
We continued to expand our distribution network during
the year. We added 297 branches and 1,136 ATMs to our
network in fiscal 2015. Our network of 4,050 branches is the
largest among private sector banks in India, supplemented
by our network of 12,451 ATMs.
The ICICI Group’s commitment towards promoting
inclusive growth was further strengthened during fiscal
2015. The Bank and the Group companies have Corporate
Social Responsibility policies, which capture the essence
of the social development objectives of the Group. We
continued to focus on the four principal areas of education,
healthcare, sustainable livelihood through skill development
and financial inclusion. During fiscal 2015, the activities of
the ICICI Academy for Skills, set up to impart vocational
training to the youth from low income segments, were
significantly scaled up in terms of training capacity at the
centres and expanding our presence into new locations.
ICICI Academy had 11 fully operational training centres
across the country. Cumulatively, around 11,000 youth
have completed training, of which 10,000 were trained
in fiscal 2015. Around 31% of the trainees were young
women. All the trained youth have found employment in
their respective skill domains.
We saw significant progress in the financial inclusion
initiatives during the year. At March 31, 2015, the Bank
had 460 branches in unbanked villages. The Bank has the
highest number of basic savings bank accounts among
private sector banks. These include accounts opened
during fiscal 2015 under the Pradhan Mantri Jan-Dhan
Yojana (PMJDY). The Bank provides electronic benefit
transfer services in 74 districts across 12 states and has
processed over 80 million such payments. We also
significantly scaled up our remittance services from urban
to rural locations for domestic migrants. Our Self Help
Group (SHG) lending programme has covered over 1.3
million women beneficiaries at March 31, 2015.
In the spirit of our commitment to leverage technology for
improving the lives of people and the Government’s ‘Digital
India’ vision, we undertook a ‘Digital Village’ initiative in
Akodara village in Gujarat. Our approach is based on 3Cs:
Cashless payment ecosystem; Comprehensive application
of digital technology spanning education, healthcare &
skill development; and making the village fully Connected
through Wi-Fi. It was a moment of great pride for us when
the Honourable Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi,
dedicated this ‘Digital Village’ to the nation on our 60th
foundation day event in January 2015.
We have a strong and diversified franchise, an extensive
distribution network, and have invested in creating leading
technology platforms. We believe India is at the cusp of
a phase of strong and sustained growth, driven by its
strong fundamentals and the forward-looking policies of
the Government. At the ICICI Group, we will continue to
focus on: leveraging technology to deliver innovative and
convenient banking solutions; capitalising on the growth
opportunities that will arise as the economy grows; and
sustaining our operating parameters as we grow, to further
enhance our return on equity.
I look forward to your continued support in this journey.
With best wishes,
Chanda Kochhar
9Annual Report 2014-2015