Micro Finance

Financial assistance to microfinance customers

Access to financial services is a key element in the process of socio-economic empowerment of the financially under-served sections of the society. At ICICI Bank, we support initiatives to enhance access to financial services by bridging gaps wherever there are missing markets, to improve livelihood opportunities and productivity in the country and bring more people into the socio-economic mainstream, thus contributing to the full realisation of India’s vast untapped market.

We believe that existing financial intermediaries like Micro Finance Institutions (MFIs) can play a significant role in enhancing the levels of financial inclusion in the country by reaching out to the ‘last mile’ and thereby sharing the responsibilities of the government and the mainstream financial sector.

The Bank has been engaging with MFIs over the past decade and is one of the key lenders to such institutions. Our engagement with the MFIs has evolved over time, and we now focus on:

• Establishing a healthy and profitable lending business through relationships with selected MFIs and
• Investing in building deeper and concurrent monitoring and control mechanisms to enable healthy growth of the microfinance sector.

ICICI Bank provides financial assistance to selected MFIs in the form of term loans. The Bank also invests in Pass Through Certificates where the underlying comprises of loans originated by MFIs. Besides, the Bank also provides other value added services to MFIs like cash management services, made-to-order current accounts, savings/salary accounts for their staff and treasury products, which enable them to invest their liquid funds.