No doubt. ICICI BANK really rewritten the meaning of BANKING. INNOVATION is the other name for ICICI BANK. While most of the other banks were really conservative, ICICI BANK took the first step in ADVANCED BANKING TECHNOLOGY. Look at their easy CASH PACKET DEPOSIT and CASH DEPOSITING MACHINE system. Till date even banks like HDFC hasn’t adopted these kind of INNOVATION.
In case of nationalized banks the case is still worse. I have been made to wait for approximately 1 hour to deposit the amount in INDIAN OVERSEAS BANK. When I went to SBI for a demand draft, they took 45 minutes for it which has been done within 6 minutes in ICICI BANK.
After my complete dissatisfaction with all the nationalized banks, I decided to go for ICICI BANK. I have an account with them since MAY 2008. Till date Iam totally satisfied with their service.
If you want to deposit cash in ICICI BANK it takes just a matter of 3 to 4 minutes. You can simply go to their branch, fill up the details in the CASH DEPOSIT COVER, put your amount inside it and give it in the counter. That’s it. The amount would be credited to your account within 2 hrs.
The same process would take atleast 20 minutes in a nationalized bank. If you need credit immediately, then you can deposit your cash in CASH DEPOSITING MACHINE. But this facility is available only in selected braches of ICICI BANK. I hope that they would extend this facility to almost all their branches. Once the amount is credited to your account you would get a mobile alert immediately.
You can deposit cash for any ICICI ACCOUNT within your state free of cost. Banks like HDFC debits your account even if their account holder depostis amount in other HDFC BANK branch within the city. Most of the nationalized banks still does not even have CBS enabled branches.
Then comes INTERNET BANKING. For several years ICICI BANK has won the BEST TECHNOLOGY BANK AWARD for their INTERNET BANKING. What else you can’t do with their net banking. You can transfer funds to your multiple ICICI BANK account, to another ICICI BANK account and also to NON ICICI BANK account free of cost. You can pay your monthly utility bills, create an FD, send money order and you can even make cash deposit request from your home for which ICICI BANK collects the amount by sending their authorised person to your home. You can link your FD account, loan account, credit card account and demat account to your netbanking user id. Payment to your credit card can be made through net banking for which there is no charge.
They are the pioneer in INTERNET BANKING. All the other banks just followed ICICI BANK for their net banking. Any innovation would be started by ICICI BANK which would be followed by other banks. Definitely the customer base of nationalized banks started falling down after the entry of ICICI BANK. You can visibly see the amount that the nationalized banks like SBI are spending for their marketing and advertising purpose which they hadn’t touch 10 years back.
About MOBILE BANKING, you need not go to their website for internet banking if you have their MOBILE BANKING APPLICATION IMOBILE downloaded to your GPRS enabled mobile. You can do all the things which you can do with your internet banking through this application from your mobile. I think HDFC BANK is providing this service other than ICICI BANK. Which other banks are providing these kind of innovative services for their customers. Nationalized banks hasn’t yet even thought of these kind of innovation.
As a coin has two sides, let me explain those things which I don’t like with ICICI BANK. They are charging heavily for using other banks ATM to withdraw cash. They are charging Rs.100/- for payment of credit card done throuh cash
Their may be some flaws in ICICI BANK. Can you name any one bank which is 100% perfect. There are flaws in every bank and we have to provide an opportunity for improvement. I can definitely say from my experience that ICICI BANK is one of the best banks I have ever had banking relationship with.
Most of the people complaining about their increase in QAB to Rs.10000 from Rs.5000. But, according to me QAB of Rs.10000 is definitely worth for their service. Because almost all the private sector banks have QAB limit of Rs.5000 for their ordinary service itself.
DISCLAIMER : I am writing this review based on my experience with ICICI BANK only as a savings bank account holder. I haven’t availed or applied for any loan product from ICICI BANK. So I can’t comment about their loan aspect. This review is purely for those who want to have a nice SB ACCOUNT experience with a bank.