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Stakeholder Engagement and Materiality Assessment

Stakeholder Engagement

Ensuring Inclusive Growth at Every Step

The Bank’s journey from an institution financing projects to becoming a financial institution offering diverse products and services manifests its commitment to delivering products and services that create value for a wide range of customers. It is in line with the Bank’s commitment to inclusion, economic empowerment and sustainable growth of all its stakeholders.

Over the years, ICICI Bank has played a significant role in driving the country's banking transformation. We have brought billions of Indians across the nation closer to achieving their dreams and aspirations through our relentless efforts towards providing a trusted and credible financial support structure to them. Our focus on delivering inclusive and holistic value has remained unwavering.

Making Every Voice Heard through Our Stakeholder Engagement Framework

At ICICI Bank, we continue to enhance our relationships with our external and internal stakeholders to ensure responsible business conduct. Such engagement is also essential for the integration of our strategies with our growth plans for the sustainable development of all stakeholders. We believe that regular interaction with stakeholders keeps us apprised about their evolving expectations as well as the opportunities for value creation in a rapidly changing macro environment. At the same time, it helps us in identifying the risks of our operations and their impact.

We have developed a structured approach to engaging with our stakeholders at different levels within the organisation. We have a single point of contact for each of our key stakeholder groups (employees, customers, investors, shareholders, government officials, regulatory bodies, suppliers, vendors, NGOs, community). This point of contact is tasked with attending to the specific stakeholder, keeping them informed, and maintaining a regular dialogue with them.

We engage with our employees through meetings, town hall sessions with directors, periodic communication meetings and business centre visits by senior leaders, an employee app - Universe on the Move, and our query raising portal. We regularly engage with our shareholders through annual general meetings, financial result declarations, media releases and investor meets. For suppliers/vendors, we conduct channel partner meetings, one-to-one meetings, and regular operational reviews. Customer interactions are done primarily through customer engagement surveys, our website, and our customer care/grievance portal on a continuous basis. Community/NGO engagements are driven through our philanthropic arm, ICICI Foundation for Inclusive Growth.

Our engagement process acknowledges the uniqueness and individual goals/concerns of each stakeholder group. The Board and Senior Management take into account the priority areas highlighted by the stakeholders and further deliberate on the required course of action to address them. Feedback from our stakeholders flows into our decision-making for future policies, operations, products and services. Besides, we also have well-articulated policies to establish a culture of ethical and transparent relationship with our key stakeholders.

Materiality Assessment

Acknowledging Stakeholder Expectations

In fiscal 2022, the Bank conducted its first materiality assessment exercise to identify key material topics for our stakeholders and business. Our five-step approach for assessing material issues involved:

Stakeholder Identification: We identified the key stakeholders by mapping their interests with our business and determining their role vis-à-vis our organisation. The external groups identified were customers, investors, vendors/suppliers, NGOs and communities. The internal stakeholders were members from the Management and Employees.
Identifying the Universe of Relevant ESG Topics: This was done based on discussions with internal stakeholders, peer review and benchmarking, sector research, media reports and secondary sources. A total of 23 sustainability topics were identified and evaluated for consideration at a strategic level. They were organised into four broad themes: governance, workplace, environmental management, and community engagement. We also ensured that these topics adhere to the sustainability reporting standards and frameworks.
Stakeholder Consultation: We developed questionnaires to capture the perspective of the identified set of internal and external stakeholders, on the identified pool of material topics. We made sure that the responses from the diverse stakeholder groups were incorporated into our materiality study. Our survey and questionnaire were designed to bring out the key issues, risks and opportunities from the stakeholders’ point of view. These questionnaires were circulated among our stakeholders as an online survey. We also had meetings with a subset of internal stakeholders, aimed at understanding their concerns and the core areas we need to consider as priority.
Data Collection and Analysis: We collated the responses received from the online survey of stakeholders and analysed the data for a visual representation of the level of priority of every material topic with respect to every stakeholder. We circled out the ones that were common to all.
Calibration of Results: Based on the analysis of the responses received through the online survey and in-depth discussions with our stakeholders, we developed a materiality matrix to prioritise the topics into high, medium and low category based on the order of preference by the stakeholders.

High

These issues are of the greatest importance to both stakeholders and ICICI Bank. We have prepared an effective and externally visible management response to these issues for long-term business success sustainability.

Medium

These issues are of medium to high importance to stakeholders and to ICICI Bank but since they do not have a major impact on the Bank's operations, therefore they fall in the medium category. We have considered these priority topics in the development of our internal strategy.

Low

These topics have been rated in the order to low priority by the stakeholders of the Bank. We have considered these topics in the long-term aspirational goals and identified these as opportunities for improvement.

Based on the ranking in the materiality matrix and the discussion with the top Management, we were able to identify the top 13 material issues for the Bank. Interestingly, the three environmental issues were rated high by our investors, though in the overall result they were in the low category. The Bank has considered these as material topics.

Management Approach on Top Material Issues

Material Issues	How We Are Responding	Refer Page Number
Compliance with regulations and other laws	We strive to be a responsible organisation with continued efforts towards embedding a strong risk and compliance culture. The Bank remains vigilant about the evolving regulatory landscape while ensuring that operations follow standards established by regulatory bodies. The Bank's control functions ensure that businesses and operations are aligned with the best practices.	59-62 of this report
Digital innovation/ transformation	We aspire to create digital innovations with rich features and functionalities for customers. The Bank’s digital platforms have transformed to provide seamless digital journeys. The open architecture platforms have enabled us to extend banking services to non-ICICI Bank account holders.	19-25 of ICICI Bank Annual Report 2022-23
Data privacy and cybersecurity	Dealing with cyber risks forms an integral part of the Bank’s enterprise risk management framework. The Bank is committed to working towards aligning itself with the changing landscape and has a dedicated team for cyber/information risk management.	70-74 of this report
Corporate governance and business ethics	We have established effective policies and frameworks that encourage employees to act in accordance with the highest professional and ethical standards. Regular communication and training of employees is also undertaken.	54-76 of this report
Transparency and disclosures	We recognise the criticality of transparency and disclosures, whether about the products we offer, our engagement with stakeholders, or our contribution to society. The Bank aims to maintain robust governance and ethical and transparent relationships with all stakeholders. The Bank also aims to ensure fair and balanced disclosures of its financial performance, with additional relevant disclosures made as and when required.	77-89 of this report
Improving customer experience and satisfaction	Our Customer 360° approach and digital capabilities have strengthened the Bank’s value proposition for customers. Actively listening to our customers has helped improve the Bank’s offerings to customers and reflects in the advocacy scores of the Bank.	69 of this report
Customer fairness and right-selling	The Bank’s philosophy of ‘Fair to Customer, Fair to Bank’ emphasises the need to deliver fair value to customers, including selling products and offering services which meet societal needs and are in the interest of customers.	30-33 of ICICI Bank Annual Report 2022-23
Financial performance	Our strategic focus is on strengthening the core operating profit less provisions (i.e. profit before tax excluding treasury gains) within the guardrails of risk and compliance. We are investing in areas that are critical for improving productivity and operational efficiency.	4-5 of ICICI Bank Annual Report 2022-23
Stability of risk management and risk outcomes	The Bank continuously reviews the operating environment and closely monitors the significant risks that could impact business. The Bank's Enterprise Risk Management and Risk Appetite Framework articulate the risk appetite, and drill down the same into a limit framework for various risk categories under which various business lines operate.	37-43 of ICICI Bank Annual Report 2022-23
Leadership development and succession planning	The Bank has adopted the principle of ‘One Bank, One Team’, and has accordingly structured its human resource management practices, including key performance indicators, providing operating flexibility and accountability to business centres and a shift from grades to functional designations at senior levels. These are aimed at greater agility and synergy across the organisation, and are supporting improved business performance and financial results.	52-57 of ICICI Bank Annual Report 2022-23
Promoting environment positive projects	The Bank has been supporting capacity creation in environment-friendly areas, such as renewable energy, use of electric vehicles, and development of green buildings, with an appropriate risk-return assessment. There is also a focus on promoting biodiversity and protecting our ecology through the Bank’s CSR initiatives.	5-6, 14-21 of this report
Carbon emissions and resource efficiency in the Bank’s own operations	The Bank is committed to minimising the environmental impact of its operations and facilities. It is working towards meeting this objective by adopting the best practices and certifications for green standards in the Bank’s operations.	14-21 of this report
Exposure of the Bank to climate-related risks in its loan portfolio	The Bank has established adequate policies and frameworks for evaluating climate-related risks in the lending book. At the same time, assessment of the portfolio to climate risks has been included as part of stress testing as well as the capital planning exercise.	67 of ICICI Bank Annual Report 2022-23 65-68 of this report