Avijit Bajpai, Monday 22nd June 2009 
India\'s largest private sector lender, ICICI Bank Ltd., is aiming at saving a whopping Rs. 1,300 crore in the existing fiscal started in April by cutting external agents and other such costs, bank officials said.
The Mumbai-based bank is now looking forward to rejig its business model to drive a majority of its consumer business via its branch network, instead of the selling agents it operates with.
Citing the same, exec director for ICICI Bank K. Ramkumar said in a statement, “We have been rationalizing our direct marketing agents and direct sales agents force, renegotiating rentals, wage management”.
The origin of this significant move dates back to a conference in London in 2007, before the monster of sub-prime mortgage crisis prompted by home-loan delinquencies struck the global financial domains.
K.V Kamath, the then chief exec and managing director of the bank, instructed his senior team to up their sleeves as he suspected an economic turmoil in the offing. As a result, a team led by V. Vaidyanathan, a then exec director with the bank, devised the cost-cutting measures to handle the situation well.
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