ICICI Bank plans retail blitz, to launch 1000 ATMs
Paramvir Singh
Mumbai, March 16: The private sector ICICI Bank is all set to surge ahead in the retail business, if one goes by the number of ATMs installed by banks in the country. The bank, with a capital and reserves base of Rs 308.32 crore as on March 31, 1999, has drawn plans to install 1000 ATMs all over thecountry in the near future.
Following this ambitious project, ICICI Bank may well have more ATMs than all other domestic banks combined, and almost twice as much as all other newgeneration private banks.
In fact, the bank plans to install around 18 more ATMs in the next 15 days,more than one new ATM a day. ICICI Bank is also in talks with two foreignbanks, apart from Corporation Bank, to share the ATM network 'for a fee'.The bank has also tied-up with companies like Indian Oil Corporation (IOC)and HPCL to install almost 70-100 ATMs in their premises.
"At present ICICI Bank has 133 ATMs (including 47 offsite ATMs) and we plan another 1000 ATMs in the near future.
This would mean an outgo of roughly Rs 250 crore which is not a constraint given our significantly improved performance in the current fiscal and the$175 million to be mobilised through the proposed American Depository Shares(ADS) issue," a senior ICICI Bank official told The Financial ExpressHowever, the bank faces one major bottleneck: the department oftelecommunication (DoT) is not in a position to provide it with the requirednumber of leased lines for ATM connectivity.
In fact, its ATM at Chandigarh has not been operationalised for quite sometime now in the absence of the required DoT connectivity.
"The constraint is on account of DoT slashing its leased line charges whichhas pushed demand for leased lines beyond what was anticipated by DoT," ICICI sources said adding that the project is aimed to give the banksignificant customer access apart from sprucing its fee based income. Meanwhile, another private sector bank, IndusInd bank, which operates its ATMs primarily on the Vsat network, is on the verge of launching a digital switch to enable it to have off site ATMs.
-Financial Express |
