ICICI Bank's upmarket leap: Sign of the times?

It's far too early to tell if ICICI Bank's minimum balance hike for new savings accounts is a sound decision, but the wheel has clearly come full circle since bank nationalization in 1969

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More than 56 years after India's then prime minister Indira Gandhi nationalized banks on the argument that private sector banks of the time were too elitist to serve the needs of most citizens, a private sector bank seems to have brought back an old debate. Back in July 1969, when the Centre nationalized 14 banks, it argued that small borrowers did not get a look-in. Today, it is ICICI Bank, the country's second-largest bank in the private sector, that has had to face some criticism. Last week, ICICI Bank raised its minimum balance requirement for new savings accounts—opened on or after 1 August—at urban bank branches from ₹10,000 to ₹50,000. For semi-urban and rural accounts, the least average that must be held was also enlarged five-fold to ₹25,000 and ₹10,000 respectively.