In his first interview with an Indian newspaper after the successful American depository share (ADS) float, Kamath outlined the term-lending institution's business strategy. ICICI has shifted focus from growth through acquisitions to consolidation. Ruling out mergers and acquisitions in the near future, the institution is now focussing on multi-channel banking through a `clicks and bricks' approach.

"We are replacing the strategy of acquiring network of branches by using wire to reach out to clients. The four prongs of our new strategy are banking through web, branches, call centres and direct marketing agents," Kamath said. He is confident of maintaining 25 per cent growth in fiscal 2000.

The plan also includes repositioning one of the in-house broking outfits into Net broking and raising capital from the global markets for ICICI Infotech. The company which provides backoffice support to ICICI plans to get into remote processing on the line of CitiCorp Securities. It employs a 400-strong staff, of which 150 are IT professionals.

ICICI, which has acquired two non-banking finance companies -- ITC Classic and Anagram Finance-- over the last three years to build up its retail network, is now concentrating on breaking down the walls within the ICICI group to leverage its strength. It has started cross selling ICICI Bank products and building up a retail asset base.

"We are proceeding towards universal banking. We may merge all group entities or keep them separate depending on the regulatory requirements. We are ready to launch a whole lot of new products over the next few months," Kamath said.

According to the ICICI MD, the acquisition of Anagram and ITC Classic has given the institution `feel' for the retail business. "We will not go for acquisitions any more and instead we are concentrating on building our own network," Kamath said. In his scheme of things, Net banking will play a major role. "We will strive to provide Amazon.com pattern of banking service. We will sell on-line products to retail clients as well as corportes," Kamath said.

ICICI is now rolling out one ICICI Centre every three days. The mini branches will serve as investor-servicing centres besides serving ICICI's retail customer online. The plan is to have a network of 250 outlets-- between ICICI centres and bank branches -- by the end of the current fiscal. "We can think about selling third-party products later from these outlets," Kamath said.

The new branch strategy will help in reducing advertising costs and increase the institution's visibility in the retail segment. "The entire focus is on the retail segment. The cross selling of products has opened up a new channel for us as the use of the captive client base helps us pricing the product tailor-made. The only missing link in the retail matrix is that we do not have many retail customers on the asset side. We will plug that gap soon," the ICICI chief said.