India's largest private lender ICICI Bank today said it will add new 1,500 branches in the next three years, taking the total to 4,000, and focus on financing infrastructure projects.
"We had undertaken the major strategic initiative of the merger of
Bank of Rajasthan with ICICI Bank during fiscal 2011. With this merger, we have created a combined network of over 2,500 branches, substantially expanding our presence not only in Rajasthan but also in other major centres in India," said ICICI Bank Managing Director and CEO Chanda Kochhar.
Talking to PTI after the Annual General Meeting of the lender here, she said following receipt of regulatory approvals for the merger in August 2010, we moved quickly to integrate the Bank of Rajasthan with ICICI Bank.
"We have been able to achieve integration of human resources and various aspects of operations seamlessly in a short span of time. We believe this provides us a powerful platform for pursuing our objective of sustained profitable growth in the coming years."
Kochhar said, "now there is no proposal of merger of any bank with ICICI Bank."
About the expansion plans, she said the bank did not open any new branch in FY11 as it acquired Bank of Rajasthan "that itself meant addition of 500 branches."
However, over the next three years, the bank plans to open 1,500 more branches, the Managing Director said.
"Our strategy for fiscal 2010-11 was to boost growth by capitalising on emerging opportunities in the Indian economy, while maintaining and enhancing the more efficient balance sheet structure that we achieved in 2009-10," she stated.
