---
endpoint: analytics
pattern: Financial Services
status: done
latency_ms: 115295
conversation_id: 4b82905c-3f54-49d9-a388-a96b951f28e1
citations: 5
created: 2026-05-31 18:47:23Z
---

# Who are the key customers and suppliers of ICICI Bank?

**Framing note:** ICICI Bank (NSE: ICICIBANK; NYSE ADR: IBN) is a commercial bank, so the "customer/supplier" framing differs from an industrial company. For a bank, "customers" are the borrower segments it lends to AND the depositors it serves, while its "suppliers" are effectively its funding sources — primarily depositors and wholesale capital markets, not physical-goods vendors. Based on internal CLSA research and ICICI Bank's earnings disclosures, the picture is as follows:

## Key Customer Segments (Borrowers + Deposit Clients)

ICICI Bank organizes its book around four primary client segments, all of which are also fee revenue drivers — fees from retail, business banking and SME customers constituted ~77.9% of total fees [5]:

| Segment | Description | Indicative size / growth |
|---|---|---|
| **Retail** | Largely secured, with mortgage loans comprising ~half of the book; personal loans and credit cards skew salaried, built largely by cross-selling to existing salary-account customers [2] | Retail loans +18.6% YoY at Dec'21 [1] |
| **Business Banking** | Parameterized / program-based lending to SMEs and merchant businesses, driven by digital platforms like **InstaBIZ** and **Merchant STACK** [1] | +38.5% YoY at Dec'21 [1] |
| **SME** | Granular, monitored, collateral-backed; overdues had reached pre-COVID levels by Sep'20 [3] | +34.2% YoY at Dec'21 [1] |
| **Domestic Corporate** | Full suite of banking products extended not just to corporates but to their *ecosystems* — employees, business associates, and supply chain partners. The bank has explicitly shifted from chasing loan growth to ecosystem servicing [4] | +12.5% YoY at Dec'21 [1] |

### Sub-segments / notable customer pools

- **Salaried individuals** — anchor of the personal-loan and credit-card book. ICICI underwrites these clients using internal liability/salary-credit data, not just bureau checks [2].
- **Corporate ecosystems** — employees, vendors, and supply-chain partners of corporate borrowers, which drive ICICI's growing current-account-deposit franchise [4].
- **NBFCs and HFCs** — about 5% of total loans (~INR 501bn at Sep'20); exposure largely to PSUs, bank-owned NBFCs, and well-established corporate-group NBFCs [3].
- **Real-estate developers / builders** — construction finance, lease rental discounting (LRD), term loans and working capital, ~3.5% of total loans (~INR 232bn at Sep'20); skewed to "well-established builders" [3].
- **Overseas corporates** — corporate fund and non-fund outstanding via overseas branches; was being deliberately run down (USD 5.47bn Sep'20 vs USD 8.35bn Sep'19) [3].

## Key "Suppliers" — Funding Sources

Unlike industrials, ICICI's "suppliers" are providers of capital, not goods:

- **Deposit franchise (the dominant supplier)** — ICICI emphasizes its "strong deposit franchise [that] enables us to offer competitive pricing to the selected customer segment" [2]. Deposit growth was +16.4% YoY at Dec'21, with average current account deposits +33.7% YoY and average savings deposits +24.7% YoY [1]. Cost of deposits is "amongst the lowest in the system" [1], enabling structurally low funding cost.
- **CASA franchise** — Current Account / Savings Account balances, particularly from salaried retail customers, corporate ecosystems, and SME/business banking merchants, are the primary low-cost funding "supply" [1][4].
- **Wholesale funding & capital markets** — Tier 1 ratio of 17.89% and total CAR of 19.33% at Sep'20 [2]; the bank supplements deposits with term debt and equity capital.
- **CLSA view (sell-side, internal RMS)** — CLSA carries ICICI Bank at **Outperform** and titles its Apr'25 note *"Never stops surprising"* — its India Financials team views ICICI as one of the strongest deposit-mobilisers and most diversified loan books among Indian private banks [6].

## What ICICI is NOT — clarifying scope

ICICI Bank does not have a meaningful "supplier" base in the procurement sense (raw materials, components, OEM partners). Its non-deposit "suppliers" are limited to technology vendors, payment networks (Visa/Mastercard for cards), and capital-market counterparties — none of which are disclosed by name as material to operations. If you meant **subsidiary / ecosystem partners** instead, the major ones are: ICICI Prudential Life (SBILIFE peer), ICICI Lombard General Insurance, ICICI Securities, and ICICI AMC — these are the listed/unlisted subsidiaries through which ICICI cross-sells to its retail customer base.

---

**Sources**

[1] Q3 2022 ICICI Bank Limited Earnings Call (TFS chunk 7436329306026238393)
[2] Q2 2021 ICICI Bank Limited Earnings Call (TFS chunk 7436321344568305340)
[3] Q2 2021 ICICI Bank Limited Earnings Call (TFS chunk 7436321346525007397)
[4] Q4 2020 ICICI Bank Limited Earnings Call (TFS chunk 7436310954026671122)
[5] Q2 2022 ICICI Bank Limited Earnings Call (TFS chunk 7436327814552750608)
[6] ICICI Bank - O-PF (Never stops surprising) — CLSA, 20 Apr 2025 — 607956313LinqAlpha.PDF (internal RMS)

## Citations

- [1] **Q3 2022 ICICI Bank Limited** · external
- [2] **Q2 2021 ICICI Bank Limited** · external
- [3] **Q2 2021 ICICI Bank Limited** · external
- [4] **Q4 2020 ICICI Bank Limited** · external
- [5] **Q2 2022 ICICI Bank Limited** · external

