Released on: June 30, 2008, 12:23 am

Press Release Author: ICICI BANK

Industry: Financial

Press Release Summary: India is the first in the region to launch the online
procurement and payment service

Press Release Body: Mumbai- Visa, ICICI Bank and Elcom Systems Ltd today announced the
launch of the Visa eMarketplace, an online portal that connects sellers and buyers of
commercial goods and services. Visa eMarketplace makes it possible for businesses in
India to conduct the entire procurement and payment transaction electronically and
efficiently over the internet using a Visa Purchasing Card. This is the first Visa
eMarketplace service to be launched in Asia Pacific.

Santanu Mukherjee, country manager, South Asia, Visa International, said, "Visa
eMarketplace is designed to be an efficient, seamless and transparent procurement
system for the commercial and government sectors. It helps to eliminate the need for
paper-based purchase orders and approvals. Essentially, eMarketplace reduces manual
effort as the process of payment and management of costs is automated. We are proud
to partner with ICICI Bank and Elcom to provide this service."

Visa eMarketplace offers a secure online option that builds on the existing Visa
Purchasing Card platform. Sellers can give buyers easy access to their product
catalogues while buyers can have better understanding and management of their
inventories, for example, by providing purchase analysis to help in the planning of
expenses. The records provided also help ensure detailed tracking for audit purposes.
Core to Visa eMarketplace is the Visa Purchasing Card which is meant for low-value,
high-volume purchase of non-personal goods and services.

Sachin Khandelwal, Head - Cards Product Group, ICICI Bank said, "In keeping with our
tradition of innovation, ICICI Bank is the first bank in the Asia Pacific region to
launch Visa
eMarketplace for ICICI Bank's Purchase Card customers. Over the last decade, the credit
card industry was driven primarily by consumer cards. Going forward, ICICI Bank sees
significant growth coming from the so far untapped and still nascent Commercial Cards
products like Purchase Card, Corporate Card and Distribution Card. ICICI Bank Purchase
Card and Visa eMarketplace are designed to offer corporates and government
organizations a robust, transparent, more economical and secure procure-to-pay
solution.
Corporates and government departments can use Visa eMarketplace to make purchases
online from their suppliers and use ICICI Bank Purchase Card to make payment. ICICI
Bank believes the Visa eMarketplace platform will add significant value to vendor
payment processes of corporates and government departments. The competitive prices
that vendors will offer here would be very beneficial to most large and small
corporates
for such purchases."

William Lock, Chairman, Elcom Systems Ltd added, "The combination of the Visa
payment card with Elcom's world-class eProcurement Platform improves the procurement
process in any organization. Our technology powers some of the most successful
eProcurement implementations in the world. Elcom has a proven track record of
delivering innovative and flexible solutions and we look forward to working with
Visa on
this new and exciting development."

Visa eMarketplace is an eProcurement service that does not require participating
organizations to invest in hardware, software or continuous upgrades. Visa eMarketplace
is a secure system that uses Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) data encryption to help ensure
that information exchanged within Visa eMarketplace is encrypted to prevent
unauthorized disclosure.

About ICICI Bank Ltd: ICICI Bank Limited (NYSE:IBN) is India\'s largest private
sector bank and the second largest bank in the country, with consolidated total
assets of $115 billion as of December 31, 2007.ICICI Bank's subsidiaries include
India's leading private sector insurance companies and among its largest securities
brokerage firms, mutual funds and private equity firms. ICICI Bank's presence
currently spans 19 countries including India. For more information, visit
www.icicibank.com.


Web Site: http://www.icicibank.com

Contact Details: Mr Charudatta Deshpande
Head - Corporate Communications,
ICICI Bank Ltd
Mumbai, India
Phone: +91 22 26538208
E-Mail: charudatta.deshpande@icicibank.com