Banks are no longer the only source of funds for Corporate India. With access to other sources of funding, is industrial credit dead?

IN EARLY 2000, two towering figures, literally and figuratively, came together to mark what would become an epochal moment in India’s banking history. Kundapur Vaman Kamath, the Big B of banking who was then heading what was known as the Industrial Credit and Investment Corp. of India (ICICI Ltd), teamed up with Amitabh Bachchan — incidentally, both over six feet tall — appointing the superstar as the face of a bank-to-be.

It was more than a celebrity endorsement; it marked the end of the era of development financial institutions, as ICICI Ltd was preparing to reverse-merge into its banking subsidiary. The presence of Bachchan was symbolic: a superstar known for reinvention was lending his face to an institution reinventing the logic of credit itself. Universal banking, with retail credit piggybacking on wholesale banking, was the future.