
Dallas, Texas 05/19/2014 (FINANCIALSTRENDS) – ICICI Bank, the largest private sector lender in India, has now trimmed its equity-investment in the United Kingdom & Canada to 7% of its net worth, from 11% cent in the past 4 years. The lender has also been repatriating the money from its overseas-banking subsidiaries to optimize capital invested in the mentioned businesses. Over the past 4 years, given the current local business environment and the regulatory development as well as the company’s strategy of optimizing capital in its overseas banking subsidiaries, the equity investment in these locations has been reduced.
Equity investment in the ICICI Bank UK & ICICI Bank Canada has now been reduced from around 11% of the net worth at Mar 31, 2010, to around 7% at the end of Mar 31, 2014 said the ICICI Bank Ltd (ADR) (NYSE:IBN) executive director, N S Kannan, during the lender’s Q4 earnings announcement.
NRI’s accounts
In separate news ICICI Bank Ltd introduced 2 new savings account products for the bank’s non-resident customers. Executive director at the bank, Rajiv Sabharwal said that they serve 1.5M NRIs across over 150 countries & process more than 5 million NRI transactions on an annual basis. The experience has also given them insights into the lifestyle as well as aspirations of NRIs & the bank’s products are specifically designed to meet these needs. ICICI Bank United Kingdom had paid its dividend worth $25M during the year. It had also repatriated $100M of capital in 2012-13. The capital-adequacy ratio of both these subsidiaries continued to be healthy. While the capital-adequacy of the company’s Canadian arm was at 29.7%, for ICICI Bank UK it stood at 21.8 per cent at March, 2014-end. Kannan also said these subsidiaries will now continue focusing on offering short-term loans, and working capital lines, as well as trade & transaction banking products.