ICICI status

gt94sss2

I know some people think that ICICI is a small bank as not many people had heard of them here (or some are slightly racist) but its not - its actually Indian's second largest bank with stock market listings in India and the USA.

From their web site:

About ICICI Bank: ICICI Bank (NYSE:IBN) is India's second largest bank and largest private sector bank with over 50 years of financial experience and with assets of USD 56 billion as on March 31, 2006. The Bank offers a wide range of banking products and financial services to corporate and retail customers through a variety of delivery channels and through its specialised subsidiaries and affiliates in the areas of investment banking, life and non-life insurance, venture capital and asset management. ICICI Bank is a leading player in the retail banking market and has over 17 million retail customer accounts. The Bank has a network of over 610 branches and extension counters, and 2200 ATMs.

ICICI Bank Limited set up its international banking group in fiscal 2002 to cater to the cross-border needs of clients and leverage on its domestic banking strengths to offer products internationally. ICICI Bank’s international presence currently spans 12 countries and includes three wholly owned subsidiaries in the United Kingdom, Russia and Canada, offshore banking units in Singapore and Bahrain, advisory branch in DIFC, Dubai, branches in Sri Lanka and Hong Kong and representative offices in the United States, China, United Arab Emirates, Bangladesh and South Africa.

ICICI Bank UK Limited is a locally incorporated UK bank with an asset base in excess of USD 2 billion as on March 31, 2006. It is authorized and regulated by the UK Financial Services Authority and was set up in November 2003 as a wholly owned subsidiary of ICICI Bank Limited, India’s second largest bank.

Credit Ratings can be found at here

I notice ICICI Bank UK Limited recently opened a branch in Belgium as well and had the Prime Minister of Belgium attend the opening..

I think they were swamped by the number of applications when they opened here but now seem to have got their act together.

Regards
Sunil

tipsychick

masonic wrote:

"Where is call centre?"
Do you really need to ask ? I find it better to communicate with them via e-mail/messages through their website.

Apparently they are in the throes of setting up a call centre in Northern Ireland to deal solely with their UK customers.

gt94sss2

tipsychick wrote:

Apparently they are in the throes of setting up a call centre in Northern Ireland to deal solely with their UK customers.

I think thats actually this company which is partially owned by the same group - not the bank itself.

Regards
Sunil

masonic

tipsychick wrote:

Apparently they are in the throes of setting up a call centre in Northern Ireland to deal solely with their UK customers.

How ironic! I wonder what effect that would have on their freephone number, though.

tipsychick

Oops - sorry! Think I must have just latched onto the ICICI bit.:o

Mr_Mumble

Martin,

Check out the link gt94sss2 provided above for the credit rating info.

It looks like you were refering to the excellent credit ratings given by ICRA and CARE. Not wanting to diminish their importance but they are considering ICICI's credit worthiness relative to other Indian companies. S&P's and Moody's on the other hand compare companies globally.

Moody's does have ICICI's credit worthiness as investment grade with the Baa2 rating. There isn't much between Moody's and S&P's rating: Moody's is the lowest of investment grade, S&P best possible sub-investment grade. Both consider ICICI is slightly speculative.

I don't wish to scaremonger with ICICI, given India's backing of its big banks only the collapse of the Indian economy itself could cause trouble and this seems highly unlikely given its current economic boom. However, India is an emerging market and, however slight, that makes it more of a risk than any big US or European bank.

oldwiring

Pro tem a miss for me, I think. Thanks guys for the replies!

stevemcol

I really think that a lot of the problems have been caused by customers constantly 'testing' the system.
Jusy let ICICI set things up and everything seems to run fine.

but

I've been drinking Stella all night.

freeloader

Have been with them for a few months (HiSAVE account) - no complaints so far. Account was quick to set up, and have been able to transfer money in and out with no problems. Can also import downloaded statements into MS Money (although the date format is MM/DD/YY, which is a minor annoyance, easily fixed)

EagerLearner

Re: having problems paying into your ICICI savings account -

Perhaps send a straight-foward e-mail just saying - 'I have not set up a linked account to make payments into my ICICI account - how can I do this please?'