Maybe it’s time to brood for ICICI Bank CEO KV Kamath (right). The bank has become India’s first financial institution to admit that the US subprime crisis (see Wikipedia entry) has cost it dear. The credit crunch in the US has resulted in losses of about Rs 1,050 crore ($264 million) in 2007-08 for India’s second largest bank, after the state-run State Bank of India. The information interestingly did not come from the bank directly, but was revealed by P K Bansal, the minister of finance in the Union Ministry, who was asked a question in the upper house, Rajya Sabha.
ICICI Bank has large overseas operations especially in the US and UK, and is likely to have had a larger exposure to overseas assets than any other Indian bank. According to an article in Mint, ICICI Bank has about $2.2 billion worth credit derivatives exposure, while SBI has only about $1.1 billion. The bank, however, said it had neither invested directly in the USD market nor taken an exposure in the US subprime loan market.
ICICI Bank has large overseas operations especially in the US and UK, and is likely to have had a larger exposure to overseas assets than any other Indian bank. According to an article in Mint, ICICI Bank has about $2.2 billion worth credit derivatives exposure, while SBI has only about $1.1 billion. The bank, however, said it had neither invested directly in the USD market nor taken an exposure in the US subprime loan market.
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