ICICI Bank, the country's largest private sector lender, which has identified infrastructure as one of its growth drivers, sees projects worth Rs 150,000 crore for achieving financial closure in the next three to four months.
"A lot of activities have come back in terms of re-starting projects. The fact that the projects are coming to financial closure indicates the sector will grow," Chanda Kochhar, managing director and chief executive officer, said at the sidelines of a seminar on micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME). However, the financial closure of core sector projects may not reflect in credit growth immediately, she said. "These are long-term projects and their disbursement will also take place over a period," Kochhar said.
ICICI Bank has about a million MSME customers and will continue to foster the sector. "My MSME portfolio in terms of lending is about Rs 12,000 crore. Our MSME loan book is growing and we will continue to grow it," said Kochhar. She declined to divulge the bank's growth projection for the sector. But, said it sees its market share in MSME lending among private sector banks, now 20 per cent, improving.
"We are looking at specific strategies and specific products for different MSME segments. We look at different industry clusters and identify what are the specific needs of the industry cluster. That way our penetration will increase," Kochhar added.
