ICICI branch at Bahrain providing various retail banking products for NRIs

The visit of Prime Minister Shaikh Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa to India earlier this year has opened a new avenue for the transfer of technology to Bahrain in the banking and financial sector, a top Bahraini official said yesterday. The opening of the ICICI Bank's offshore banking unit in Bahrain yesterday is one of the immediate impacts of that historic visit, said Bahrain Monetary Agency (BMA) Governor Shaikh Ahmed bin Mohammed Al Khalifa.

"This is the second licence for a banking institution from India being granted by BMA," he told journalists, after opening the ICICI branch at the Manama Centre.

The ceremony was attended by a high-level delegation from ICICI, including managing director and chief executive officer K V Kamath, joint managing director Lalita Gupte and senior general manager Bhargav Dasgupta.

BMA Deputy Governor Khalid Al Bassam and Indian Ambassador Bhaskar Kumar Mitra also attended.

"ICICI's presence in Bahrain is a strong addition to our banking network comprising of more than 360 banks and other financial institutions," said Shaikh Ahmed.

"As one of the fastest growing banks in India, ICICI is expected to bring in new technology to the Kingdom.

"The licence granted to the bank is a good one to start with, to serve the financial community as well as the non-resident Indians (NRIs)."

Bahrain is proud to strengthen its ties with India, a country of more than one billion people and a vast reservoir of technology, said Shaikh Ahmed.

"We are making every effort to follow up the success of the Prime Minister's visit to India in January," he added.

"As part of this effort, I led a delegation from Bahrain to Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bangalore two months ago, and held talks with top officials of the Reserve Bank of India and other financial institutions.

"The exchange of more high level visits between our two countries will take place in the coming months."

ICICI country head Ajay Sharma hosted a luncheon at the Gulf International Convention Centre, Gulf Hotel, yesterday.

ICICI Bank in the last few months bagged several industry leading rewards.

The most significant of these include Best Bank 2004 award by Business India, the leading business magazine in India and Most Customer Friendly Bank by Outlook Money, another leading personal finance publication in India.

Other awards include Best Bank in India - 2004 award by Euromoney, Best Domestic Commercial Bank award by Asiamoney, Best Bank in India by Finance Asia and Asian Banker's award of Best Retail Bank in India.

In Bahrain, ICICI would roll out the bank's full suite of OBU products so as to act as a hub for its banking operations in the GCC countries, said Mr Sharma.

"Further, the bank is in the process of providing various retail banking products for the NRIs in Bahrain as part of its licence from BMA for NRI banking services," he added.

"The bank has already soft launched certain NRI banking activities, mainly the saving account and the fixed deposits for the NRIs."