Mumbai, Apr 28 (PTI) ICICI Bank on Thursday said it is targeting to double its loan book to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the next two years on higher demand from the segment.
The second-largest private sector lender has seen that in the last two years, the SME loan book has doubled to Rs 40,000 crore at the end of FY22, while the business banking loan book has trebled to nearly Rs 53,000 crore in the last three years.
“We are confident to maintain the momentum in the coming years,” the bank’s executive director Anup Bagchi said.
Taken together, the business banking and SME book occupied 11 per cent of the total loan book at the end of FY22.
It can be noted that in the results disclosed last week, the lender had said that the retail portfolio looked after by Bagchi now accounts for 44 per cent of the overall loan book.
Bagchi said the lender believes that the micro, small and medium enterprises segment forms the backbone of the Indian economy by contributing nearly a third to the GDP and nearly half of the overall exports.
The segment also employs 42 per cent of the workforce, he said, after the lender announced the launch of a digital product.
It launched the ‘digital ecosystem’ for MSMEs that can be accessed by customers served by rivals as well, which offers enhanced services for existing customers, a bouquet of banking services for customers of rivals and a range of value-added services for all. PTI AA BAL BAL
