India's growing knowledge economy and rising consumer aspirations drove the growth of ICICI Bank [Get Quote], the country's most valuable lender, its CEO K V Kamath said on Tuesday.
"The bank has built a customer base of 27 million and in 2006, added 8 million, which is more than the population of Singapore," he said after receiving the Businessman of the Year award instituted by Forbes Asia.But Kamath, 60, said this was only the foundation. "We have so far built the foundation. The superstructure still needs to be built."
Under Kamath's leadership, ICICI's market capitalisation has risen to $31 billion compared with $1.6 billion in 2002, when the original corporate lending institution merged with its commercial banking offshoot.
"Our story is the India story. This story was led through knowledge," Kamath said. He said rising aspiration levels of the consumers provided the required impetus to the bank's growth.
Asked the reason behind his success, he said "no leader succeeds without a team. I take credit for building that team and encouraging the process of idea-generation of that team."
With his selection as the businessman of the year, Forbes Asia has awarded Indian executives three times in the last four years, the previous winners being Nandan Nilekani of Infosys [Get Quote] and Ratan Tata.
ICICI's assets have grown 40 per cent annually in the last three years to $93 billion, propelled by a boom in Indian consumer credit where the private sector lender has a dominant one-third market share.
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