ICICI Bank is going all out to woo German retail customers, to tap the savings potential of the largest economy in Europe.
MUMBAI: ICICI Bank is going all out to woo German retail customers, to tap the savings potential of the largest economy in Europe.
The bank will open its first branch in Frankfurt in February and plans to use internet banking to expand in the retail space there.
Sonjoy Chatterjee, executive director of international banking group, ICICI Bank, said the bank is on track to open the branch. It received a licence for the same in early 2007.
“We are on track to open our German branch in Frankfurt by February. We have spent substantial efforts to set up the full back end operations for the German operations. The challenge was to set up the full interface in German language,” Chatterjee said.
This will be the first time that an Indian bank is launching a call centre and internet banking facility in a non-English speaking country.
ICICI is present in 18 countries and its international banking operations have so far been strongly connected to the non-resident Indian (NRI) population.
Chatterjee said ICICI’s German internet savings platform will be similar to the HiSave offering in UK and Canada. “The internet will our key channel in Germany. We will use our branch to facilitate the operations of Indian companies there,” Chatterjee said.
ICICI is targeting retail business in Germany which has the highest savings rate in Europe at 10.80%. ICICI also has an eye on servicing the large auto market in Germany, particularly as Indian auto companies expand in the large German auto market.
Chatterjee was responding to a query from DNA Money after a Bloomberg report citing the German newspaper Handelsblatt earlier said that ICICI is postponing its start in Germany.
Handelsblatt had quoted Suvek Nambiar, ICICI’s head for Europe, North America, Russia and Africa saying ICICI will start “before mid-summer” instead of November 2007 as earlier planned because of “a longer than expected dialogue with regulators.”
But speaking to DNA Money, Chatterjee denied there was any delay due to any dialogue with the regulator. The time was taken was to set up the call centre and back up service operations in German language, he said.
r_joel@dnaindia.net
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