Icici Bank Invests Rs 200 Crore In Sme Fund

ICICI Bank, with five other financial intermediaries, has set up a Rs 800 crore India Advantage Fund for the equity component of small and medium enterprises.

The bank has invested Rs 200 crore in the fund. The other partners include the Life Insurance Corporation of India, Punjab National Bank and Oriental Bank of Commerce.

H N Sinor, joint managing director of ICICI Bank, said the fund had closed with a corpus of Rs 800 crore. Although small and medium enterprises (SMEs) obtained debt funding from banks and financial institutions, they often lacked the capital to support their ventures, he pointed out.