ICICI BANK'S METEORIC RISE

ICICI Bank, under Sandeep Bakhshi, has left behind bellwethers like HUL and Infosys to climb two positions on this year’s BT500 list and break into the Top 5

- ANAND ADHIKARI

FIVE YEARS AGO, Bhadohi in Uttar Pradesh—around 50 km from Varanasi—was a sleepy town, with its hand-woven carpets being its only claim to fame. Small carpet-weaving units were scattered across the region, some struggling to survive while new ones emerged every year. The double jolt from demonetisation and the roll-out of GST also cast a shadow on the economy of this town in southern Uttar Pradesh. As the dust settled, the implementation of GST became a catalyst for the formalisation of the industry. Several fintech and smaller NBFC players descended upon Bhadohi to offer cash-flow lending—which is based on daily earnings instead of balance sheet-based lending—to those who were unbanked and underbanked.