Mumbai: ICICI Bank has launched a money remittance service for the NRIs staying in Russia. Called ''Money2India'', the facility is being provided by the ICICI Bank Eurasia LLC.

India''s largest private sector bank, ICICI started its operation in the Russian capital in 2006, by acquiring a small regional bank as a vehicle to enter the Russian market.

"Relations with Russia are critical for India and growing presence of large Indian banks in the country is a welcome development. The new remittance service, first time offered to the Indian community here, fills the banking gap between the two nations, as individual Russian importers could also make payment to Indian beneficiaries," Indian ambassador to Moscow Kanwal Sibal said while launching the new service at the main branch of the bank.

"With the help of instant wire-transfer, funds to the Bank''s Indian rupee account holders could be remitted in just two hours and at much cheaper rate as the foreign banks will not be involved in the transaction," Niranjan Limaye, president of ICICI Bank Eurasia LLC, said.

"Besides this, under Money2India transfer scheme, we can deliver Indian rupee demand draft to any beneficiary in India within four working days," he said.

By March 2008 ICICI plans to have 13 branches, including in St. Petersburg, Nizhniy Novgorod on Volga.

"Indian students studying in various cities of Russia can open an account with our bank and withdraw the money remitted to them from home in any ATM with the help of debit card," he added.

ICICI Bank is India''s second-largest bank with total assets of Rs344,658 crore ($79 billion) at March 31, 2007 and profit after tax of Rs3,110 crore ($715 million) for fiscal 2007. ICICI Bank is the most valuable bank in India in terms of market capitalisation and is ranked third amongst all the companies listed on the Indian stock exchanges in terms of free float market capitalisation*. The bank has a network of about 950 branches and 3,300 ATMs in India and presence in 17 countries.

ICICI Bank currently has subsidiaries in the UK, Russia and Canada, branches in Singapore, Bahrain, Hong Kong, Sri Lanka and Dubai International Finance Centre and representative offices in the United States, United Arab Emirates, China, South Africa, Bangladesh, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia.