Foreign Bank label on ICICI and HDFC Banks

By Dr Sanjay Chaturvedi

High level lobbing into finance ministry is in offing where RBI and other top brass are discussing the bail out for a situation where ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank are now coming under definition of foreign banks. FDI in these banks are above 51% and hence with automated routes, these banks are to be treated as foreign banks.
A foreign bank cannot do housing finance business in India but only through its wholly Own India Subsidiary and funds put to operation has to be moblised by such subsidiary from Indian markets.
Top official of these banks said that their banks are still Indian bank since they have Indian management.
“ Our management continues to be Indian, we are still a bank of Indian origin. The classification of share holding pattern does not really impact our day-today performance, ICICI bank CMD Chanda Kochar said.
Aditya Puri from HDFC bank said they will talk to government about this.