ICICI vows focus on infra, youth and social responsibilities

As it completes 60 years of the group's existence tomorrow, ICICI Bank has identified infrastructure building, a young population and social fibre of the country as its three focus areas going ahead.
The group would focus on creating new products for the youth of the country and further tap the potential of technology going forward, while partnering in the government's infrastructure building initiatives, ICICI Bank's chief Chanda Kochhar said.
Speaking about the three biggest focus areas for the group going ahead, Kochhar said ICICI would also focus on its social responsibilities as a national institution and partner the government in areas like skill development.

The ICICI Group would tomorrow complete 60 years of its existence since the erstwhile ICICI Ltd was set up in 1955.
The Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India (ICICI) was originally set up as an Indian financial institution at the initiative of the World Bank, the Government of India and representatives of Indian industry to provide project financing to Indian businesses.
It later got merged with ICICI Bank which was set up in 1994.

"Going forward, as India gets back to its next round of growth, we are looking forward to partner in the government's infrastructure building initiatives," Kochhar told PTI in an interview.

"The second focus area going forward will be partnering the government and the people of India in reaping the demographic dividend which still remains untapped to a large extent.
"The true potential of India's demographic dividend has not been yet fully realised and we will focus on creating products for the youth of our country and further tap the potential of technology.
"Thirdly, we will look at our social responsibilities as a national institution and would look at partnering in areas like skill development," said Kochhar, who began her career with ICICI Ltd in 1984 as a management trainee and has been instrumental in shaping the retail banking sector in India.

Talking about the three biggest 'high points' of the group in 60 years of its existence, Kochhar said, "It's been a great journey for ICICI in the last 60 years and one of the major high points clearly has been that as an institution, we have played a major role in nation building, including by way of our participation in building infrastructure."
"Be it roads, power, highways, telecom and manufacturing, ICICI has been a partner in almost all areas of infrastructure building exercise," she said.