The bank’s shares tanked by about 9 per cent on the Bombay Stock Exchange after Union minister of state for finance P K Bansal, in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha, put the MTM losses of the bank at $ 264.34 million as on January 31, 2008.

“We don’t have any direct exposure to subprime. It’s not technically a subprime loss,” joint managing director Chanda Kochhar told reporters. She said the bank will book ‘mark-to-market’ loss of $70 million on its investments in this quarter as credit spreads have widened due to subprime crisis. “We have accounted for the loss of about $ 90 million up to December 2007. In this quarter, we have provided for a marked-to-market loss of about $70 million - $ 50 million in ICICI Bank and another $ 20 million in ICICI Bank subsidiaries,” Kochhar said.

ICICI Bank and its overseas banking subsidiaries have an aggregate exposure of $ 2.2 billion in credit derivatives. As of January 31, 2008, the mark-to-market negative on this portfolio due to movement of credit spreads was about $ 155 million of which $ 88 million had been provided for in the bank ‘s financial statements for the nine months ended December 2007.

CREDIT crunch

• ICICI Bank’s aggregate credit derivatives exposure is $ 2.2 bn As of January 31, 2008, the mark-to-market negative on this portfolio due to movement of credit spreads was about $ 155 mn

• Of this, $ 88 million had been provided for in financial statements of the bank and its subsidiaries for the 9 months till December 2007

•In case of fixed income investment portfolios, as of January 31, 2008, negative was about $108 million, of which $101 million had been accounted for in the financial statement up to Dec 31, 2007