Net banking boosts

The bank has built up the NRI deposits without any physical presence abroad and utilises the correspondent banking arrangements to channel the deposits put in by NRIs.

The listing of parent ICICI Ltd on the New York stock exchange provided wide exposure to the bank8217;s website and also gave a boost to ICICI bank8217;s image in the USA, he said.

ICICI bank has been putting up promotional banners on other websites and e-mailing NRIs on the basis of addresses obtained from other websites.

quot;We have also purchased NRI databases, based on which attractive mailers have been sent,quot; Shenoi said.

The bank, which offers the highest interest rates on NRI deposits, is in the process of assisting NRIs take a decision on choosing from among the available deposit schemes by providing a calculator8217; on its website to know the returns each of the schemes would fetch for them.

The bank plans to increase its branch network from the current 65 to over 100 branches within a year and supplement it with more offsite ATMs and the proposed internet kiosks.

Internet kiosks are being planned as PC penetration in India is very low and it would provide customers the ICICI Bank8217;s web-banking services, Shenoi said.

He said the bank would soon be launching telephone banking in Delhi, Chennai and other major towns. The bank already offers the service in Mumbai.

ATM and telephone banking reduces cost per transaction by nearly 60 per cent, while internet banking brings down the cost to only about five per cent of that expended in a typical branch in suburban Mumbai, Shenoi said.