China’s central bank invests in ICICI Bank amid ‘Boycott China’ movement

After the Chinese central bank's investment in mortgage lender HDFC Ltd created a flutter in the Indian market earlier this year, the People's Bank of China has now made an investment in ICICI Bank. The Chinese bank has emerged as one of the investors in ICICI Bank's Rs 15,000 crore capital raising exercise which ended last week. It signed a cheque of Rs 15 crore in the private bank under the qualified institutional placement. The People's Bank of China was amongst the 357 institutional investors which included domestic mutual funds, insurance companies and global institutions that subscribed to the issue. According to experts, the current investment by a Chinese bank in ICICI Bank doesn't pose any threat as banking is a highly regulated business. The prominent investors among them were Government of Singapore, Morgan Investment and Societe Generale.