News Release

July 20, 2000

ICICI Limited (NYSE: IC), today launched Payseal, a payment gateway, which ensures safety and security of online transactions. Payseal interfaces between the Internet shopper, web merchant and banking systems in a secured environment to facilitate online payments.

With the launch of Payseal, online shoppers can transact safely on the Internet by using their credit cards. ICICI has already signed up with over 15 leading web merchants, where all online transactions will soon take place on the Payseal gateway. In the coming months, the gateway will be available on more than 50 sites.

Payseal is already operational on magiccart.com, and is in the process of online testing with the other sites. Six other sites would be operational within the next 10 days.

In an online transaction, when transaction information travels over the Internet, it remains vulnerable to unauthorized access. Further, the consumer may not be comfortable leaving his credit card details with a net merchant especially as the transaction cannot be validated by the customer's signature. In this environment, the consumer needs the assurance that his credit card details cannot be misused.

With Payseal, an online shopper will be able to give his card details and payment instructions directly to payment gateway in a secure session. Payseal removes any human interface both at the point of a customer's transaction with the web merchant and subsequently during the settlement of the transaction with banking systems. This has been achieved by using the SSL (Secure Socket Layer) technology, which helps encrypt transaction data using 280 bit RSA and 128 bit encryption.

The Payment Gateway servers are hosted at ICICI's state of the art data center, secured by sophisticated firewalls and other network security infrastructure. The gateway would employ both software and hardware encryption to ensure the highest level of security.

Payseal routes the encrypted transaction data directly for online authorization, authenticates the parties involved in the transaction and ensures integrity and privacy of all messages. By addressing the critical aspect of security in on-line transactions, ICICI believes that many more merchants, consumers and businesses will be encouraged to transact freely and securely on the Internet.

The gateway has been implemented by Compaq India for the server technologies and QSI Payment Technologies (QSI), Australia for the software solutions. QSI is a leading e-commerce payment solution provider with several successful installations across the globe.

The gateway will initially accept credit card payments with ICICI Bank as the acquiring bank. Soon, Payseal will also be able to handle a variety of other payment modes such as debit & smart cards and direct bank debits. The gateway also proposes to tie up with other banks to enable B2B payments.

Except for the historical information contained herein, statements in this release which contain words or phrases such as "will", "aim", "will likely result", "believe", "expect", "will continue", "anticipate", "estimate", "intend", "plan", "contemplate", "seek to", "future", "objective", "goal", "project", "should", "will pursue" and similar expressions or variations of such expressions may constitute "forward-looking statements". These forward-looking statements involve a number of risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those suggested by the forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to our ability to successfully implement various projects, our strategy, our growth and expansion, technological changes, investment income, cash flow projections, our exposure to market risks as well as other risks detailed in the reports filed by ICICI Limited, with the Securities and Exchange Commission of the United States. ICICI undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date thereof.

For further investor queries contact: A.P. Singh at 91-22-653 6262 or email at singhap@icici.com / visit www.payseal.com