Mumbai, Nov. 12: ICICI Bank is growing rapidly in the UK, with its clients comprising not only NRIs but also other sections of the British society.

Buoyed by the success of ‘direct banking’, an Internet-based facility, ICICI Bank UK Ltd is building a large clientele among the local population.

It opened its first branch at Knightsbridge, London, three years ago after starting its operations in the UK with a representative office. The UK unit is now the most profitable of ICICI subsidiaries.

ICICI Bank UK Ltd is also the highest-rated Indian banking entity (Baa1 by Moody’s) and the largest Indian bank in both the UK and Europe. The bank now has six branches, including one in Belgium, and plans to open a branch in Germany.

Sonjoy Chatterjee, managing director and CEO of ICICI Bank UK Ltd, told The Telegraph that the bank was acquiring close to 5,000 customers per month through the direct banking channel.

The bank has also diversified its customer base beyond NRIs with the local population getting attracted by the competitive interest rates and better services. Around 60 per cent of the bank’s direct banking customers are non-NRIs.

“This has been largely due to our strength in technology. The cost advantages we had due to this strength have been passed on to the customer. This is not to mention that the service carries full deposit insurance,” Chatterjee said.

He said the bank’s success can be ascertained from its healthy balance sheet. By the end of September, the size of the balance sheet was $3.4 billion, with customer accounts comprising close to $2.1 billion. The bank expects the size of the balance sheet to go beyond $5 billion by the end of the fiscal.

The bank does not have any stressed assets on its books.

It recorded a significant achievement when the Financial Services Authority — the regulator of all financial services providers in the UK — brought down the capital adequacy ratio for the bank by 1 percentage point to 14 per cent a couple of months ago.

However, ICICI Bank UK is not resting on these laurels. It is planning to launch personal loans through the Internet and start transaction services for small and medium enterprises.

With many Indian companies keen to expand through the inorganic route in the UK, the bank wants to retain the tag of nurturing the highest number of investment transactions from India into the country.

The bank was the sole adviser and financier to the Apeejay group when it acquired the entire tea business of the UK-based Premier Foods Plc.

The best of Times

• Direct banking has helped ICICI Bank UK rope in a large number of non-NRIs
  
  
• On September 30, the bank had a balance sheet size of $3.4 billion and of this, close to $2.1 billion was customer accounts
  
• CAR for the bank was brought down by 1 percentage point to 14 per cent