ICICI’s Jha: “We approach customers as ‘One Bank’ with the entire bouquet of services”

ICICI Bank, the second-largest private sector bank in India, recorded notable business growth in the first half of FY 2023–24 on strong credit expansion. Its operating income grew by 26%, and its net profit increased by 38% year-on-year (YoY). Retail loans increased by 21% and deposits by 19% YoY ending September 2023.

Rakesh Jha, executive director at ICICI Bank, said: “From a credit perspective, the demand has been quite healthy across all segments, especially retail and small businesses. We have seen 21%+ growth in retail loans and healthy growth in retail term deposits. Indeed, as the cost of those deposits is going up, there has been some easing of margins in the industry, and some more will likely happen for banks, including us.”

He shared that ICICI has been deepening its philosophy of ‘One Bank, One Team’, and approaching customers with an entire bouquet of products and services. The bank has been investing in its data management system to enable its relationship managers (RMs) to better engage with customers, decongest the branches, and improve customer deliveries.

Jha explained: “We have revamped our [marketing technology] and are migrating it to a new system. We are also upgrading our master data management system, which went live in December. So, we have a ‘golden copy’ of the customer, a single file for the customer, and it allows us to decongest the customer processes and improve the experience.”

Focusing on its data framework, ICICI is among the first banks in India to use a cloud-based data lake. It also formalised governance around artificial intelligence (AI) and currently uses over 200 AI models. It recently started applying generative AI to create images and personalised content for its direct communication channels and to aid call centre-based RMs in customer pitches, targeted marketing, and addressing customer queries. In addition, the bank strengthened its processes through robotic process automation.

Strengthening digital channels

Jha remarked: “Both iMobile and InstaBIZ are very comprehensive platforms that enable onboarding and lifecycle management of all transactions. We are looking to make these more scalable, simpler, resilient, and clutter-free. There have been over 10 million non-ICICI Bank customers who have activated the app.”

The bank is also expanding its branch network to improve customer acquisition and access. It now has close to 634 branches, having opened 348 branches in the past six months.