More banks may join overseas bond run after ICICI Bank’s bumper dollar bond sale

ICICI Bank raised 1 billion US dollars through a five-year dollar-denominated bond issued via its GIFT City branch, doubling the initial deal size from 500 million dollars due to strong investor demand. The bonds were priced at about 100 basis points over US Treasuries, yielding a fixed coupon of around 5.459 percent payable semi-annually. The successful issuance signals strong global investor confidence in Indian bank credit and is expected to encourage other lenders, including Bank of Baroda, EXIM Bank, NaBFID, and Bank of India, to tap the offshore market using the RBI's subsidised hedging facility, under which Indian banks have already mobilised 20.7 billion dollars within six weeks of launch.