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ABSTRACT
In the early banking era, Commercial banking and Investment banking functions were limited within their own bricks and mortar premises. But with the advent of universal banking in India, the concept of banking services has almost changed in the present scenario. The consolidation of Commercial Banking, Development Banking and Investment Banking has promised a wide range of banking services to the masses in a more convenient way under one roof. These services comprise of Merchant Banking, Mutual Funds, Factoring, Credit cards, Housing Finance, Auto loans, Retail loans, Insurance, etc. With the contributions of Universal Banking concept, Indian banks are able to attract more customers in an increasing volume as they meet the requirements of their actual and potential customers under one roof. The concept of Universal Banking has emerged as a WIN-WIN strategy in the recent scenario of banking sector. Most of the banks in Indian Banking Sector are on the verge of Universalisation.
The Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India (ICICI) has the first mover advantage of Universal Banking in India. With the changing face of banking sector, ICICI accepted the challenge and entered the market with zeal. ICICI came out with the new strategy and concept of universal banking in India and took a bullet migration path towards Universal Banking. With the approval of Reserve Bank of India, ICICI converted itself into a Universal Bank in 2002 resulting in a reverse merger of ICICI Ltd. with ICICI Bank Ltd. The merger created India's second largest bank in terms of assets. Soon after the Universalisation, it became the market leader in retail credit in India in the year 2003. In 2005 it became the largest bank in India in terms of market capitalisation.
Therefore, the main aim of this paper is to study the strategies and working of ICICI as a Universal Bank. The present paper also throws light on the performance analysis of ICICI as a Universal Bank. In order to determine the performance of ICICI, pre and post Universalisation scenario has been compared. This paper attempts to evaluate the Pre and Post Universalisation performance of ICICI Bank using certain financial ratios. To analyse the impact of universalisation paired sample t-test has been used. For this purpose, the total...