After the RBI accords its sanction to the scheme of amalgamation, the board of directors of the bank will be fixing a record date for determining the shareholders of BoM, who will be eligible for the shares of ICICI Bank Ltd in exchange of shares of BoM.

BoM has 1,17,69,900 equity shares against which the bank will have to issue 2,35,39,800 equity shares of the face value of Rs 10 each. The new shares to be issued would be listed at the stock exchanges in Vadodara, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, New Delhi and the National Stock Exchange of India Ltd.

Speaking to The Financial Express on the staff rationalisation plans for both the banks, the senior executive vice president of ICICI Bank, Ravi Kumar said: "We at ICICI Bank have a staff strength of 1,750 members with BoM comprising 2,750. So there will now be a total number of 4,500 staffers."

Mr Kumar further said that the bank will retain the combined employees of both the institution. "We hopefully want to recruit more because we plan to grow much bigger,'' he said."

ICICI Bank presently has 105 branches and now coupled with BoM's 264 branches, the bank will have a total number of 369 branches.

Said Mr Kumar: "We will now get 1.2 million retail customers and 40 new banking centres where ICICI Bank's branches are virtually absent."

Envisaging a bright future for ICICI Bank, Mr Kumar added: "We are already among the top 15 banks and our growth momentum will continue with thismerger."