ICICI's unorganised retail business grew by 20 per cent on a year-on-year basis in the last fiscal.
Speaking on the sidelines of the Retail Estate Summit, organised by the Indian Chamber of Commerce, V Vaidyanathan, executive director of ICICI Bank, said that organised retail is still at a very nascent stage in India, it is only five percent of the total Rs 13 lakh crore retail industry.
A significant portion of the ICICI Bank credit goes to this segment with total exposure amounting to Rs 10,000 crore.
Till date over one million accounts have been opened across India, mainly for the small time shoppers, kiranas and small enterprises, he said.
According to a survey done by ICICI Bank, extension of the banking and credit facilities to the unorganised sector has brought about around 30 per cent improvement in their efficiency.
"The bank will be exploring the organised retail sector, which though at a nascent stage in India, looked a profitable business avenue to us. As of now the exposure in unorganised retailing is higher than exposure in organised retailing, but we will definitely increase the latter's share as and when it grows," Vaidyanathan added.
In a bid to tap the unbanked sector, ICICI Bank has issued 300,000 bio-metric cards and has enabled over 600 ATMs with technology that will allow a non-account holder of the bank to withdraw cash.
This was done as a support initiative for its 'smsNcash' product that enabled anyone without a debit card or even a bank account to access ICICI Bank ATMs using a unique password. It hoped to increase its rural footprint through such a product.
