ICICI Bank sees pick up in project financing

With the shadow of economic slowdown receding, the country's largest private lender, ICICI Bank, has seen a pick up in project finance portfolio, primarily from energy and construction sectors, a bank official said today.

"The project finance has picked up already and I expect this to improve further moving ahead," ICICI Bank's Global Project Finance, General Manager, Partha Dey told reporters here.

The global financial downturn had impacted the loan demand in the industry over the past one year but bankers said the interest is returning as corporates are back on track with their projects.

Recently, ICICI Bank CEO and Managing Director Chanda Kochhar had said that the bank, while reducing its unsecured retail loanbook, is growing its corporate finance segment both on project finance and trade finance.

"As far as credit growth is concerned, for the past three quarters, we were constantly letting our unsecured retail portfolio to go down. We are growing our corporate finance book both on project finance and trade finance," Kochhar had said.