ANNUAL REPORT 2023-24
The Bank continues to deepen its engagement with customers and further simplify delivery processes and digital platforms, with a sharp focus on enhancing efficiency and resilience.
In fiscal 2024, the Bank continued to lay emphasis on delivering customer delight, providing frictionless interactions, offering intuitive digital interfaces and enhancing customer advocacy by continuously decongesting processes, digitising and re-imagining customer journeys. We are harnessing new-age technologies and platforms to enable us to serve our customers with simplicity. The philosophy of ‘Fair to Customer, Fair to Bank’ and the culture to serve the end-to-end needs of customers continued to drive mutually beneficial customer relationships and build trust in our brand.
Deepening our engagements with customers to understand their expectations and the insights gathered from proactive product and process walkthroughs, Net Promoter Score (NPS), Voice of Customer (VOCs), customer complaints and Root Cause Analysis (RCAs) helped in implementing various customer service initiatives.
Some of the key initiatives which were implemented for enhancing service delivery and customer experience were:
The onboarding experience was further decongested by enhancing Customer 360°, to ensure that no additional KYC documents have to be submitted when an existing customer avails a new product from the Bank and the existing data and documents with the Bank are processed. Customer 360° was enhanced to cover loans (home loans, personal loan, auto loan), credit cards, standalone Fixed Deposits (FD) and NRI products.
At the Bank’s Voice Channels that handle around five million engagements every month, the focus was on service improvement and seamlessly managing the increase in the customer base. To further enhance the service experience, various interventions were implemented including:
To enable a smooth customer experience of connecting to the Voice Relationship Manager (RM), a new feature Virtual Hold was introduced. Once a call is in queue and the expected wait time is longer than the defined threshold, a prompt is played on the IVR, where the customer has the option to receive a call back while retaining the sequence number in the queue.
This is designed to manage customer queries that may require expert intervention and a Subject Matter Expert guides the RM and provides end–to-end resolution.
This enables a customer’s voice print to be enrolled for verification. Instead of entering authentication details, the customer’s voice is enrolled and utilised for authenticating future calls.
For customers calling the Voice channel for availing a service, the Voice RM has an option to send a WhatsApp notification to the customer on a real-time basis. This helps customers to experience the digital journey and adopt the same for future service needs.
Our digital channels bring together innovation, security and resilience while delivering customer delight across journeys and we continually look to enhance our digital journeys.
To facilitate seamless servicing at the business centres, the Bank’s endeavour is to decongest and simplify processes and customer journeys to enable the frontline staff to deliver enhanced customer engagement. For this, various enablers were implemented at the business centres, such as DigiServe, where operations staff is available on-site for processing transactions at high footfall business centres, enabling 100+ services in BOTM (Branch on the Move), simplification of key processes such as minor to major conversion and re-KYC and mobile number updation for NRI customers.
Enablers were also introduced for better handling of issues that cause emotional anxiety for customers such as deceased claim. This includes a dedicated helpline, reference grid for identifying right documents to be communicated to the customer among others. Credit card services at business centres were enhanced, with 30+ credit card services being enabled, including change in address, limit enhancement, activation of auto debit, etc. Loan and demat servicing were also enhanced across business centres. During fiscal 2024, the Bank saw a sustained improvement in the Net Promoter Score (NPS), reflecting customer value creation and advocacy.
The Bank monitors key customer service metrics and complaints through a well-defined framework. The Customer Service Committee of the Board and the Standing Committee on customer service convene on a regular basis to deliberate on customer service and the initiatives undertaken by the Bank for enhancing the same.
The Bank complies with the ‘Customer Rights Policy’ which enshrines the basic rights of customers. These rights include Right to Fair Treatment; Right to Transparency, Fair and Honest Dealing; Right to Suitability; Right to Privacy; Right to Grievance Redress and Compensation. These policies are available on the Bank’s website.
The Bank aims to treat its customers fairly and provide transparency across its offerings. Continuous customer education efforts are made to enable customers to make informed choices regarding banking products and services. The Bank also seeks to ensure that the products offered are based on an assessment of the customer’s financial needs.
The Bank has a well-defined and comprehensive grievance redressal mechanism, to provide resolution to customers with clear turnaround times. The Bank offers multiple channels to customers to register complaints including the business centres, voice and digital channels. All complaints received by the Bank are recorded in a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system and tracked for end-to-end resolution. The Bank has an escalation matrix built in the CRM system to ensure that customer requirements are appropriately addressed within stipulated timelines. Detailed Root Cause Analysis (RCAs) of the issues highlighted in customer feedback, complaints, etc. are conducted. and insights from the same are implemented to improve the products and processes and enhance the services of the Bank.
Further, as recommended by the Reserve Bank of India, the Bank has appointed senior retired bankers as Internal Ombudsmen of the Bank. The Customer Service Committee of the Board, the Standing Committee on Customer Service and the business centre level Customer Service Committees monitor customer service at different levels.
Recognising customers’ need to understand personal finance better, the Bank launched a unique digital initiative ‘The Orange Book’ in fiscal 2022. This is a monthly e-magazine that educates customers about personal finance in a simple, easy-to-understand manner using contextual examples, infographics and interactive games & puzzles, and helps them to take better financial decisions. The Orange Book has covered an array of financial topics from inception till date, including fundamentals like power of compounding and emergency fund to goal-based investing, tax saving and importance of nomination, will writing and succession planning. The Orange Book also continuously educates customers about how to protect themselves from emerging frauds. This initiative has been well-received by customers.
ICICI Bank is committed to protecting the privacy of individuals whose personal data it holds, and processing such personal data in a way that is consistent with applicable laws. It is important for employees and businesses to protect customer data and follow the applicable privacy laws in India and overseas locations to ensure safety and security of data. We believe that the data privacy framework should be aligned to the evolving regulatory changes and digital transformation.
The Bank has a presence in several jurisdictions outside India including Hong Kong, Singapore, United States, United Kingdom, Canada, China, Dubai International Financial Centre and Bahrain. The Bank is committed to ensuring compliance with applicable laws across these jurisdictions. It has an integrated and centralised strategy for achieving data privacy compliance across all jurisdictions. A set of principles have been defined with respect to handling customer data. There is a mechanism in place, which is accessible to all employees in the Bank, for reporting any form of personal data incident. The Personal Data Incident Handling Forum (PDIHF) comprises the Data Protection Officer (DPO) and senior members from the Information Security Group, Operational Risk Management Group, Fraud Management Group, Human Resources Management Group, Compliance Group and Legal Group. Any kind of personal data related incidents reported through the service request undergoes detailed investigation and a report is presented to PDIHF at monthly intervals.
As per the Personal Data Protection Standard of the Bank, it ensures that all personal data it processes is kept secure using appropriate technical and organisational measures including necessary policies, processes and controls which includes physical access control, encryption, data protection impact assessment and providing training to the Bank’s employees. The Bank periodically updates the Personal Data Protection Standard to cover the personal data protection regulatory requirements as applicable to the Bank in India and its overseas offices to reflect the changes in data protection laws and regulations.
Privacy regulations require the personal data of customers to be protected throughout the entire life cycle. Accordingly, the Bank has undertaken several comprehensive measures such as categorising all personal data and sensitive personal data as ‘Confidential Information’, keeping record of all its processing activities, entering into non-disclosure and confidentiality agreements with employees and third parties who are privy to personal data of the customers and providing customers the option to exercise various rights which they enjoy under applicable data protection regulations and incident handling procedures.
There are e-learning modules specifically on the concept of personal data and its protection to build awareness among employees. Periodic trainings are provided and various data privacy awareness initiatives are taken up by the Data Privacy team for employees to help them get an overview of data privacy and its importance in day-to-day work. Periodic mailers are also sent to the employees to create awareness about data privacy.
The Bank has established a strong governance framework for data privacy management. The Bank’s Data Protection Officer (DPO) oversees all privacy related developments for the Bank as a data processor for international banking business and as a data controller/data fiduciary for its banking activities in India. The Bank has designated data protection managers/representatives from each business function and at each overseas location to ensure the proper implementation of the privacy standard.
A Privacy Steering Committee, oversees various privacy related initiatives. Further, the Bank’s Code of Business Conduct and Ethics includes guidelines on customer privacy and confidentiality of data.
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