ICICI Bank to cover 60 districts by year end

ICICI Bank plans to cover over 60 districts in 2006 and up to 200 districts in 2007.

The bank has decided to set up at least one touchpoint within every 3-5 kilometres of rural and semi-urban areas.

The touchpoint could be in the form of branches at the district level, franchisees at the block level and kiosks at the village level, said Brahmanand Hegde, the bank's head-products and credit, rural and micro banking group.

He added that the bank is planning to start at least 50 branches and have at least 8-10 franchisees for every branch and an equal number of kiosks against one franchisee.

Apart from the vanilla liability and asset-based products, ICICI Bank is now focussing on product areas such as remittances, trade services and having a transaction support team in place for its rural customers.

Going forward, the bank plans to focus on technological investments in rural initiatives to offer services, facilitating investments in shares and mutual funds and online commodity trading based on live market information.

The bank is also examining the possibility of putting in place a helpline to address farming related queries, online agro-commodity based information and live mandi prices through price tickers.

The channel is designed in a hub and spoke structure with full service bank branches being the hubs and rural internet kiosks acting as the spokes.

Kiosks are owned and operated by rural entrepreneurs, thus ensuring a high level of customer interaction.

They also serve as a one-stop shop for a wide range of services such as agricultural extension, health, education, e-governance et al.

The bank has established over 3,000 kiosks across the country, including Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Gujarat and UP.