INDIA'S TECH BANK

ICICI Bank is making rapid strides towards becoming a tech bank by expanding its digital offerings for retail, MSME and corporate customers. It has covered a lot of ground but there’s still a long way to go

- BY ANAND ADHIKARI PHOTO BY HARDIK CHHABRA

Two months before Covid-19 crippled the world, the top 100 executives from ICICI Bank were at an offsite. The theme was #2025. New MD & CEO Sandeep Bakhshi had been in the corner office for only 15 months and there was a lot of uncertainty around ICICI Bank—India’s second-largest private lender in terms of assets—back then; yet, the brief from the top management of the Mumbai-headquartered bank was clear: What do you think your customers would demand from the bank in the year 2025?

The retreat emphasised the bank’s digital chops—its channels and analytics backbone was fully digital, employees used digital tools extensively and its customers were tech-savvy—but a big question loomed. How do you satisfy customers’ fast-changing needs of instant gratification, contactless banking and zero wait times? The answer was, of course, technology. The Covid-19 lockdown provided a fillip to the bank’s resolve to develop a new architecture for future-proof banking. Today, ICICI Bank uses interoperable digital infrastructure for digital sourcing and accepting documents digitally. Plus, it takes the entire bank to customers via curated products and services, front-end apps, ecosystem hubs, and branches and managers fully equipped with analytics and pre-approved loan limits. There are also digitally available relationship managers—both humans and bots—working together to service customers 24x7. “Technology should not be seen in isolation. It is here to support the bank’s strategy and help the bank to drive business,” says Executive Director Sandeep Batra.