ICICI Bank is back in retail lending space

The country's second largest bank, ICICI Bank (ICICIBANK.NS : 850.9 -14.6), which had slowed down its retail lending earlier, is back in promoting its housing as well as auto loans Chanda Kochhar, CEO and MD, ICICI Bank, has said ICICI Bank would focus on promoting its housing as well as auto loans in the next quarters of the current fiscal. She said the draught-like situation in the country would have a limited impact on her bank's farm loan portfolio since it is very small currently.

While talking to media persons on sidelines of Risk Management Summit 2009, organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry on Tuesday in Mumbai, Kochhar said, "However, it's a little premature to right now quantify the impact of monsoon on the country's GDP growth rate as monsoon season is yet to get over."

She said that if purchasing power in rural areas of the country gets affected due to water or power shortage in the days to come, then it will impact the economy and banking sector at a large.

While highlighting 10 principles of risk management at the summit, Kochhar said that each organisation had different risk appetite and that it should fairly assess its own risks, measure them and evolve a monitoring mechanism to deal with those risks.

"Risk should not be avoided due to over obsession with safety. Risks need to be assessed, measured and also monitored effectively," she said.

UK Sinha, CMD, UTI Asset Management Company, said the country has got many regulators in India and that is a risk as inter regulatory gap is prevailing in the country. "Also, short-term performances of business entities are awarded in today's scenario. It's a risk. I urge our financial analysts and the media to adopt a self-disciplinary approach while evaluating short term performances of the companies."

GN Bajpai, former Sebi chairman and member advisory board, MCX Stock Exchange, said that it is necessary for an organisation to undertake internal assessment to deal with dynamic external environment. Bringing to fore the aspect of corporate governance, which is the foundation of risk mitigation, Bajpai emphasised that there is a great risk in boardroom behaviour which does not question the morality of management.