ICICI Bank was initially founded as a development financial institution in India in 1955 and today it is the largest private sector bank in the country. ICICI is implementing its SME banking model in India despite a weaker environment and relatively poor financial infrastructure. ICICI’s model is based on an effective segmentation of the SME market by industry and business linkages, a proprietary 360-degree credit risk evaluation covering financial and non-financial parameters to compensate for SMEs’ lack of financial information, and a “beyond lending approach” that relies primarily on deposit products and other banking services for SMEs (95 percent of SME clients) rather than only on lending products (5 percent of SME clients). Client servicing is done though multiple channels: relationship managers, doorstep banking, branches, Internet, and automatic teller machines (ATMs), relying primarily on cost-efficient, technology-based channels.
