News Release
March 14, 2000
ICICI Group announces the arrival of m-Commerce With Orange and AirTel
ICICI Bank Limited, the banking subsidiary of ICICI Limited (NYSE: IC
and IC.d), today launched mobile commerce (m-Commerce) services for its
customers in a tie-up with Orange, the cellular services provider in Mumbai.
The tie-up will allow Orange subscribers who are also ICICI Bank account
holders and/or ICICI credit card holders to track their personal finances
while on the move.
ICICI will also simultaneously launch this service in Delhi in a tie-up
with Airtel - the cellular services provider in Delhi.
For the first time in India, ICICI has extended m-Commerce services to
the ICICI credit card holders apart from the bank customers.
ICICI would also be launching demat accounts related services to its
customers shortly. m-Commerce services will soon have the capability to
be extended to offer information on a customer's investment and loan portfolios
as well.
With this launch ICICI Group, the leader in technology banking and e-commerce
in India, is now offering its customers the next frontier of technology
- m-Commerce.
In future these services will go beyond just mobile banking to a level
where the hand-held device can be used for undertaking a variety of commercial
transactions, making it a true m-Commerce.
The ICICI m-Commerce proposition will be built up in two phases. In the
first phase, a "query module" is being made available to all banking and
credit card customers of ICICI.
The system will be able to handle banking queries such as balance update,
request for a cheque-book, details of last 3 transactions and request
for statements by mail or fax.
Similarly, ICICI credit card holders will be able to get information
about outstanding balance, available cash / credit limits, see payment
status/ amount due information and see the last three transactions.
In the second phase, ICICI Group will add a "transactions module" to
the query module, which will enable an ICICI Customer to manage his personal
finance needs including the ability to instruct own account funds transfer
and make bill payments.
Besides providing information and transactions on request, ICICI's m-Commerce
services will also flash "alerts" to the customer in future.
Based on built-in business rules, the alerts will be flashed at various
trigger points such as on reaching a certain level of debit/credit, outstanding
amount etc.
At the first level, ICICI will support the existing mobile service providers'
Short Messaging Service (SMS) capabilities, while ensuring complete security
of data transfer. ICICI plans to provide WAP enabled services with the
mobile service providers at a later stage.
To enjoy the facilities of m-commerce, all the customer needs to do is
to register for m-commerce, using a simple form that is available at all
ICICI Bank branch locations, in Mumbai.
Except for the historical information contained herein, statements
in this Release which contain words or phrases such as 'will', 'would',
'aim', 'likely', 'will likely result', 'believe', 'expected', 'will continue',
'anticipate', 'estimate', 'enable', 'enabling', 'intend', 'plan', 'contemplate',
'seek to', 'future', 'objective', 'goal', 'project', 'should', 'will pursue'
and similar expressions or variations of such expressions may constitute
'forward-looking statements'. These forward-looking statements involve
a number of risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual
results to differ materially from those suggested by the forward-looking
statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited
to our ability to successfully implement our alliance with SIFY, and ICICI's
Group's ability to obtain statutory and regulatory approvals and to successfully
implement the integration of various systems in respect of the on-line
brokering initiatives. In addition there would be certain uncertainties
arising from the ability to successfully implement our strategy, future
levels of non-performing loans, our growth and expansion in business,
the adequacy of our allowance for credit losses, technological implementation
and changes, the actual growth in demand for Internet Banking and on-line
brokering products, investment income, cash flow projections, our exposure
to market risks, alliances with other corporates, as well as other risks
detailed in the reports filed by ICICI Limited (promoter and holding company
of the Bank) with the Securities and Exchange Commission of the United
States of America. ICICI undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking
statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date thereof.