ICICI Bank plans US, Russia branches soon

ICICI Bank, the largest private sector bank in the country, will shortly commence banking operations from the US and Russia, while a representative office will be opened in South Africa.

Meanwhile, it is strengthening its presence in eight overseas locations that it has already entered.

Bhargav Dasgupta, head - international banking group, said that licence applications have been made for commencing banking operations in the US, where a representative office already exists, along with Russia, where several corporates have begun showing interest.

Besides, all required clearances have been received for opening a representative office in South Africa. "We will commence operations at these three locations in the next fiscal," Dasgupta said.

On the growth plans of the international banking operations, that was launched about two-and-a-half year ago following the merger of ICICI and ICICI Bank, Dasgupta said that several strategic choices for international banking, including regional emphasis and acquisitions were studied, before the bank decided to adopt the strategy of following the customer.

"In fact, we began implementing two and a half years ago, what most people are now talking about - the interest of Indian corporates to set up shop abroad. That perhaps explains the rapid growth of international operations of the bank," Dasgupta said.

The official said that a big time stress on latest technology, huge emphasis on remittances and timing the international operations have been the key to the growth of ICICI Bank's overseas business.

It may be said that the bulk of the bank's international business comes from remittances. For this, the bank has effected strategic link-ups with some global banks like Emirates Bank in Dubai, followed by DBS in Singapore, Lloys Bank in the UK, Wells Fargo in the US and the Bank of Montreal in Canada.

ICICI Bank has subsidiaries in the UK and Canada, while it has branches in Singapore and Bahrain, besides having representative offices in four other overseas locations.

"We will basically focus our efforts in the places that we have already set up a presence, although the bank will move on to other locations like Russia and South Africa," Dasgupta said.