After shrinking its retail loan book for seven long quarters starting from the beginning of 2008-09, ICICI Bank seems to have returned back to the growth track. The loan book of the bank has shown a growth of Rs. 1,81,206 crore on 31st March 2010 as compared to Rs 179,269 crore in the previous quarter.

Although the loan book of the bank may be lower than the peak amount of Rs. 225, 616 crore which it had recorded as on 31st March 2008, the bank is ready to cash out all opportunities that the recovering economy brings about.

The percentage of retail loans have been reduced to 43% as against 49% last year while there is a rise in corporate loans to 18% from 12% last year. The share of ovrseas lending remains constant at 25%.

The bank's reliability pillars would be current and savings account ratios (CASA), capital adequacy ratio (CAR) improvement in cost efficiencies and a credit quality.

"The growth has been mainly on the domestic book, with corporate advances contributing more to the balance sheet. We have seen loan growth in housing, car, commercial vehicles, project loans and trade finance books," ICICI Bank managing director and CEO Chanda Kochhar said.

The bank has expectations of achieving a credit growth of a little less than 20% in this fiscal. It would concentrate on lending to companies as well as individuals.

The CASA ratio of the bank has improved from 28.7% a year earlier to 41.7%. The CAR of the bank is 19.4% while it has also seen a decline in NPA levels to 1.87% as on 31st March 2010 as compared to 2.19% a year earlier.

At the end of the fourth quarter, the operating expenses of the bank were further down 7.9 per cent at Rs 1,526.89 crore from Rs 1,657.05 crore a year ago.