Liquid Bank

Dec 10, 2012 (LBO) - Sri Lanka's ICICI Bank, a branch of an Indian bank with the same name, has seen its [SL] AAA credit rating confirmed by ICRA, a rating agency on support from the parent, comfortable capitalization and high sovereign asset holdings. "The credit strengths are partially offset by small scale of the Sri Lankan operations, modest profitability and high credit concentration in the advances book," ICRA said in a statement.

"The bank’s focus remains on corporate lending for India linked local corporates and reputed local companies.

ICICI Bank (Sri Lanka branch) had started in January 2006 with focus on retail lending and remittance business, but retail asset operations were curtailed from 2008 as part of a global strategy.

The current retail portfolio is less than 1 percent of total advances Total assets were 10,831 million rupees by end June 2012, with a loan book of 2,643 million rupees. Most of the balance was in government securities and interbank lending.

About 73 percent of total funding came from the group. The bank had capital adequacy of 43 percent.

ICRA Lanka affirms the Issuer rating of [SL] AAA of ICICI Bank Limited (Sri Lanka Branch)

ICRA Lanka Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of ICR