DISQUS

The MoneyVidya.com Blog: Response from ICICI Bank to my post ‘Fresh Rumours: ICICI Bank Collapse imminent? Not likely.’

  • kpst · 1 year ago
    Hi Gautam,

    Just a factual correction. As per BS article, 89% of ICICI UK's non-India investment book (estimated to be around $3.5 bn) has been rated A- or above by S&P. Agreed, A- is not that good a rating, especially in such times.

    I do agree ICICI may have some more toxic waste to show up after its last announcement of Rs.1000 crore in Jan and March. The market knows it better than anybody else. That is evident from wat happened to stocks of each of these top investment banks of US before their fall. So, there are smart ppl in the market who at least have a broad idea of wat is coming if not the specific details.

    However, being an Indian bank complying with stringent RBI regulation, the situation might not be as bad. Looking at the stock price, i feel buying in parts anywhere around 450-500 would be advisable. However, need to keep a close watch on the position.

    Disclosure: I dont own any shares of ICICI Bank
  • admin · 1 year ago
    kpst - thanks for bringing the error to my attention - have made the correction, and added another para in as well...
  • shalini · 1 year ago
    I think the worry in the mind of most Indians is not about share price of ICICI Bank but of their assets- bank accounts, FD, etc also of companies which are doing business with ICICI Bank.
    The issue is much larger than share prices because the number of people with an exposure to the shares of the bank are just a fraction of the number of people who have some sort of banking relationship with ICICI Bank
  • Abid · 1 year ago
    I think that you are right when you say that ICICI bank is not going to collapse. The regulators are never going to allow that. I hope that after the reserve bank decided to reduce the credit reserve ratio for scheduled banks, the banks are breathing a sigh of relief.

    I am happy at least that ICICI is making an effort to reassure depositors, regardless of the fact that the message is standardized and yeah do you think the company should really have a non standardized response to such an important issue?
  • admin · 1 year ago
    Well I can understand that they have to put up a uniform face, and I haven't got any real problems with that, except that they're not really answering the question at hand: What is the full extent of your Mark to Market losses from your exposures to Credit Derivatives? Has it gone up from the $260mn that you reported earlier? Have you squared off these exposures? Telling me things like 'ICICI is well capitalised' and that the 'RBI has retained prudent credit practices' doesn't really tell me anything, does it?
  • Manoj · 1 year ago
    The Fatal part is that, ICICI is a bank (probably the only) bank that has a bad business ethics & practices among the entire banking sector in India. There are so many out there (the common people who really struggle daily for their bread and butter) who once believed ICICI as the common's bank. Somehow in the initial stages ICICI was successfull in developing this inconspicuous image among the public. Unfortunately the bank has failed miserably in handling peoples money by making wrong investments, foolish speculations & their greedy attitude of only filling the tummies of its share holders.

    This bank (it's employees) has so much of antisocial practices & frauds which has even taken lives of so many people and shattered their families. Starting from second accounts to hawalas to fake currencies to money laundering and what not....... If you check with the Police Stations in Kerala, you will come across atleast 2000 complaints against ICICI & atleast 300-350 registered crimes in the year 2007-'08 alone. I myself has moved a criminal complaint against ICICI bank against Cheque Tampering by one of the Credit card division Manager. (He is now absconding)

    I think this is high time we all realize the value of our nationalized banks & their services. My appeal to all is that ... Better Late than Never......
  • moneyvidya · 1 year ago
    @manoj - while i have no way of check facts i visited the consumer forum consumercomplaints.in and did a quick search of SBI and found 9981 results. For ICICI I found 6023 results and for HSBC I found 1195 results.

    Based on this evidence and gut feel - I cannot really believe that ICICI bank is *any worse* than SBI etc. in terms of complaints in general. I can see however, how state banks might be a little bit more lenient in debt collection etc.

    All the same, this post seeked to explore the financial stability to ICICI and expected future performance rather than weight its pros and cons versus other banks.