In the backdrop of the nationwide lockdown owing to the Covid-19 pandemic, ICICI Bank also deployed mobile ATM vans across various cities to bring key banking services to the doorstep of residents, who were advised to stay home.

The Bank rolled out these mobile ATM vans in Ahmedabad, Chennai, Coimbatore, Delhi NCR, Noida, Mumbai, Ranipet (near Vellore) and Varanasi, among others. They were stationed at multiple locations in these cities in consultation with the local authorities, for the convenience of citizens. These mobile ATMs enabled customers of any bank to withdraw cash conveniently and safely. One could also transfer funds to a registered payee, book fixed deposits and recharge pre-paid mobiles. ICICI Bank customers could also use the facility of cardless cash withdrawal at these mobile ATMs for enhanced safety.

I. Safety, Health and Work Environment

Given that banking is categorised as an essential service, our frontline staff continued to operate our branches, ATMs and other facilities in an uninterrupted manner during the nationwide lockdown. Our senior leadership team led from the front to mitigate the concerns of our employees and their families. Our interventions include:

Contact tracing

We have adopted an organisation-wide protocol of contact tracing and containment when an employee or an outsourced personnel is found to be Covid positive. All primary contacts are strictly advised to isolate themselves via selfquarantine for a period of 14 days. In addition to manual confirmation on contact tracing, we have also adopted a digital contact tracing system to track and monitor the employees who come in contact with a Covid positive colleague. This digital system uses attendance data of employees on the given day to identify their proximity to a Covid positive colleague. The teams then undertake a series of measures to help in isolating employees based on detailed and medically recommended risk criteria.

Medical care and support

Any employee, who is Covid positive, is extended medical care and support at the best hospitals across the country. All medical expenses, no matter if they exceed beyond regular insurance limits, are borne by the Bank. In addition, the manager and a human resources partner remain connected on a regular basis with the employee and her/his family till she/he has recovered.

Further, the Bank has tied up with leading service providers for isolation and home care programmes for its employees and their family members. In home care programme, experts from the healthcare service providers monitor and provide virtual consultation services, taking care of overall wellness of the Covid-19 positive employees. Similarly, employees and their family members, who are advised institutional quarantine, can avail the facility of isolation centres in eight cities. These centres are equipped with best-in-class facilities and the employees are attended to by on-duty doctors and nurses.

Helpline

The Bank has set up a Covid-19 Helpline for its employees and their family members. Employees can reach out to doctors for remote consultation and seek advice and clarifications pertaining to symptoms and other medical problems.

Safe premises

We maintain a hygienic and sanitised environment within our premises to ensure the safety and comfort of our employees and customers. We follow well-defined, world-class office safety protocol including wearing mask, regular sanitisation and maintaining social distancing. We reinforce Covid appropriate behaviour through regular advisories and constant communication. Wherever necessary, we have taken steps to retrofit office equipment, and provide transparent partitions to enhance the safety of our workplaces. The bank equipped its large offices with state of the art HEPA filters and also extensively worked on improving ventilation across its offices.

We added plexiglass partitions at our branches to increase safety of our employees and visiting customers. All offices were equipped with thermal scanners, masks, sanitisation material.

II. Business Continuity and Enablement

Being part of the essential services, our employees were required to keep our branches open and functional even during the complete lockdown. While some teams could continue to work from home during the entire lockdown, our branch teams and few other essential teams had to be in office for customer service and continuity of business processes. The following enablers were put in place to facilitate this:

- We issue authorisation letters and vehicle passes to minimise inconvenience to our employees during the lockdown.

- We also put in place a system to create i-Pass, a self – declaration based pass generated by employees. It is hosted on the Bank’s mobile application – UOTM. This was implemented to ensure that only employees who are rostered to come to office could attend office on a particular day. Employees are advised to generate i-Pass after answering mandatory questions on health status every time they were rostered to attend office. These questions are asked to ascertain the probable risk that any employee was exposed to. Only employees carrying a green i-Pass are allowed inside the Bank premises.

III. Communication and Engagement

The leadership team at ICICI Bank is cognisant of the fact that a hybrid model of working requires constant communication and strengthening of engagement with employees at all levels. This is critical not only to ensure seamless and bestin-class customer service but also to boost the morale of employees, augment teamwork and ensure their emotional well-being. Our leadership team works tirelessly to ensure continuous connect with our people on a 24X7 basis.

All our front line branch teams responded to their “call of duty” to ensure uninterrupted service to the customers during the lockdown and post it as well. In order to salute their commitment to service, all leadership team members established e-connect with branches and engaged with each and every staff member of the branch. Through this engagement, gratitude was extended to the branches, at the same time assuring them that Team ICICI will always support them.

Our teams across various businesses worked tirelessly to provide exemplary service to our customers and innovate new business models and methods in the emerging environment. To elaborate more on these opportunities, a leadership engagement session was rolled out for all employees. The top management of the Bank were panelists for this session. All panelists were logged in from different locations and shared their thoughts as well as highlighted the opportunities. They also addressed clarifications from the employees logged in across geographies. A digital amphitheatre was created, which was hosted on i-Studio, our in-house developed application for internal broadcast.

- Leaders at ICICI Bank have led by example by attending office regularly to provide direction to our people. They constantly reach out to frontline teams at branches through customised and in-house digital channels. The leaders use these regular interactions to applaud their efforts and assure them of unstinted support.

- The #TeamICICI application was created and launched as an interactive social networking platform for all ICICI Bank Employees especially in the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic. It hosts important news relating to the Bank and serves as a platform for our people to post their views and opinions and showcase their talents.

- At ICICI Bank, we believe that celebrations are an integral part of our lives. They strengthen employee connect and foster a sense of camaraderie. In line with this philosophy, we migrated all our celebratory events and recognition ceremonies to virtual platforms during the pandemic.

#Flytheflag, our Independence day celebrations were conducted online. Employees across the country participated in this momentous celebration.

An event ‘Branch Veer’ was conducted to recognise the contributions of the crosssectional employees during the tough times of the pandemic.

Some of the key offerings introduced during the pandemic are:

ICICI STACK

ICICI STACK is an array of the country’s most comprehensive digital banking services and APIs (Application Programme Interface) which empower customers and non-customers to fulfil all their banking requirements without visiting a branch. This cutting-edge platform caters to the entire gamut of individuals and business including retailers, merchants, fintechs, large e-commerce firms and corporates. It offers nearly 500 services that encompass almost all banking requirements of customers such as digital account opening, loan solutions, payment solutions, investments and care solutions. ‘ICICI STACK’ is the result of an evolving and pioneering journey to build digital solutions and large capacity to fulfil the vision of Digital India. In the wake of the Coronavirus outbreak, a host of new features and services were added to the bouquet of the STACK.

WhatsApp Banking

Over 2.5 million of our retail, corporate and NRI customers now use our cutting-edge WhatsApp Banking to avail more than 25 services. Initially, we launched this service to enable our customers to undertake a host of banking requirements from their home. To begin with, we introduced services like checking account balance, last three transactions, credit card limit, ATM/branch locator, get details of instant loan offers and blocking cards among others. We have also introduced this service to our Corporate and NRI customers. Enthused by the encouraging response, we have added several new features like opening instant savings account in a few minutes, locating nearby essential stores, create fixed deposits, pay utility bills, access details of trade finance for Corporate customers, iPlay videos on the bank’s services and safe banking quiz.



Chatbot and voice banking

During fiscal 2021, we integrated our best-inclass AI powered multi-channel chatbot, ‘iPal’, with the world’s two most popular voice assistant apps - Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant. This integration enables our retail banking customers to undertake an array of banking services like checking their savings account balance, getting credit card details and ask queries about the Bank’s products and services 24X7 with just a simple voice command, without having to visit a branch. With the growing comfort of customers in using digital assistants like Amazon Alexa/ Google Assistant in every-day life, these banking services are adding immense convenience to our customers, as they allow them to get speedy and personalised banking experience whenever they need it.

Video KYC

During the year, we began offering new-to-bank customers the facility to complete the ‘Know Your Customer’ (KYC) process, which is required to open a new relationship with the Bank, through video interaction. This service is available for new customers keen to open a savings account (including a salary account), avail a personal loan, get a credit card and avail a home loan without having to meet a bank official. We are the first in the industry to offer the facility to open a salary account and avail a personal loan. Video KYC makes the whole process digital, frictionless and fast. Moreover, it helps customers to complete the KYC process while maintaining social distancing in the ‘new normal’. The ‘Video KYC’ facility helps customers and lenders alike to forge a new banking relationship quickly and safely, with zero physical contact.

Home Utsav

In fiscal 2021, ICICI Bank launched ‘Home Utsav’, a unique virtual exhibition that offers a wide range of real estate projects from leading developers across the country. It also offered exclusive benefits like attractive interest rates, special processing fees and digital sanction of home loans, all under a single umbrella. The virtual exhibition was made available to everyone, including those who are not customers of the Bank. It offers customers the enhanced convenience of simply browsing these projects online, from the comfort of their home and office. This endeavour will help customers own their dream property in a hassle-free and convenient manner.



We enhanced our suite of loan products and services with unique contactless, digital and instant offerings during the Covid-19 pandemic. Some of them are:

Insta Education Loan

This is a first-of-its-kind facility that enables preapproved customers to take education loans up to R10 million in a fully digital process against their fixed deposits with the Bank. They can furnish the sanction letter to the educational institute to confirm their admission.

Insta Flexicash

This is an end-to-end fully digital facility that enables our Salary Account customers to get approval for overdraft (OD) instantaneously and in a paperless manner on the Bank’s internet banking platform. This product is particularly significant during these trying times as it helps our salaried customers to tide over their need for liquidity in a hassle-free manner.

Insta Loans against Mutual Funds

It enables retail customers to get a loan of up to R10 million instantly by pledging their holdings in both debt and equity schemes of mutual funds. The fully digital and paperless facility empowers customers to avail this loan as an overdraft in a matter of few minutes, without visiting a branch and submitting physical documents.

Cardless EMI

It enables pre-approved customers to buy their favourite gadgets or home appliances just by using their mobile phone and PAN instead of a wallet or cards. Customers can convert the highvalue transactions into easy, no-cost monthly instalments by simply putting their registered mobile number, PAN and OTP (received on mobile number) on the PoS machine at the retail outlets. We are the first in the industry to introduce a fully digital, completely contactless, cardless EMI facility at retail stores.

Debit card for customers availing Loan Against Securities

We are the first bank in India to introduce a debit card facility for customers availing Loan Against Securities (LAS) from the Bank. The VISA enabled card can be used by customers across all domestic merchant establishments to make seamless POS and online transactions like payments on e-commerce portals among others, using their sanctioned LAS amount.

Our existing products and services along with new launches are ensuring that we provide uninterrupted banking services to both customers and non-customers as the nation continues to combat the pandemic.