At the UAE’s Service for Two Decades

Banking and investment needs of affluent customers and family businesses have changed over a period of time, particularly over the last two decades. Globalisation and technology are the two main catalysts behind this change. The UAE being at a pivotal position has taken the centre-stage, not only in providing a conducive business environment but also safe and premier lifestyles. Importantly, the UAE as a destination is chosen by HNIs from across the world, making it multi-cultural and multi-ethnic.

For this reason, the UAE has attracted many Indian professionals and entrepreneurs. ICICI Bank, being one of the largest private sector Indian banks, has envisaged this transformation and along with other global destinations, established its base in the UAE almost two decades ago. Since then, it has been serving the banking needs of non-resident Indian (NRIs) and person of Indian origin (PIOs) in the UAE. Being an Indian bank, its focus has largely been on Indian products, offerings and services.

At ICICI Bank, we constantly innovate and enhance product offerings to provide best-in-class banking experience to our customers. We serve 1.5 million NRI customers across more than 150 countries and process over five million NRI transactions annually. This experience has given us insights into the lifestyle and aspirations of NRIs and our products are designed to meet their needs. In this highly regulated and commoditised product space, features like the concierge service, benefits for family members in India and a bouquet of products help us in creating a distinctive experience for the customer. Besides individuals, we also cater to the corporate banking needs of Indian companies based in the UAE. We offer services like trade facilities, remittances, treasury and other cross-border facilities, thus making it a one-stop shop for all the financial needs of the customers.

ICICI Bank in the UAE caters to individual, private banking and corporate clients by offering them a bouquet of services like deposits in INR and USD, inbound and outbound remittances, Indian mutual funds in INR and USD share classes, bonds of Indian companies issued in INR and USD, among others. Further, it provides a platform which enables customers to trade in Indian stock markets. It also offers loan against deposits, as a liquidity option to its clients.

The bank now offers three-tiered savings accounts for NRI customers — Regular, NRI Pro and NRI Premia. The three-tiered offering has been designed with the objective of catering to the unique needs of different categories of NRI customers based on their life stage. While the Regular savings account is the basic product, the NRI Pro and NRI Premia savings accounts have been designed to offer enhanced convenience and experience. NRI customers can choose from two types of regular savings accounts – NRE and NRO. The NRE savings account is used for overseas income and the NRO savings account is mainly used for income earned in India, for instance, rental income.

In addition to offering Regular savings account benefits, the NRI Pro savings account offers NRI customers value-added features such as priority service, preferential rates on money transfers and banking benefits for family members based in India.

The NRI Premia savings account will offer all the benefits of a NRI Pro savings account along with access to a dedicated relationship manager to take care of the customer's banking needs, and a travel insurance bouquet* which includes air accident coverage of up to INR 10 million.

NRI Premia customers also get to experience special privileges in form of 24xs7 concierge programme that gives them access to reservation assistance as well as preferential pricing on dining, travel bookings, golf courses, spas and special events across the world.