Icici Bank To Mop Up Rs 18000 Crore Deposits

In the run up to its reverse merger with parent ICICI, the ICICI Bank has kicked off a deposit mobilisation binge which will see it mopping up Rs 18,000 crore up to March 31, 2002.

This is because the merged 'universal' bank will have to provide exactly that much towards cash reserve ratio and statutory liquidity ratio requirements, post-merger, said Chanda Kochhar, executive director, ICICI Bank.

In the past one and a half months the bank has already increased its deposits base by Rs 4,000 crore.

As on September 30, ICICI Bank had a deposit base of Rs 17,515 crore.

"The bank has raised Rs 4,000 crore of which around two thirds are from corporates, while the remaining is from retail. Most of the corporate deposits have a tenure of six months to one year," Kochhar said.

The bank is targeting these corporate deposits from a host of companies including public sector units, cooperative banks, AAA companies. The interest rate on corporate deposits is about 50 basis points higher than retail deposits.

Kochhar said the deposit mobilisation spree has not increased the cost of funds for the bank. "The retail deposits currently are at 65 per cent of the total deposit base. The bank is concentrating on the erstwhile Bank of Madura (BoM) branches specially the top 100 branches. As these branches have been integrated into our systems it will be easier for us to hawk our products. We will use the additional branches to push our products," said Kochhar.

BoM had around 260 branches at the time of the merger. The top 100 branches which covers around 75 per cent of the business volumes.

ICICI Bank plans to convert 150 branches by December into the new platform and this which will cover 94 per cent of the business.

"The priority for the bank is to increase its focus on retail deposits in the long term," added Kochhar.

ICICI Bank has been able to bring down the cost of funds by 100 basis point to around 7.3 per cent after the takeover of bank of Madura.