ICICI Bank Hits Pause on Hiring Spree: Digital Dreams, Not Desk Jobs, Drive FY26 Strategy

India's second-largest private sector lender, ICICI Bank, said that it does not see adding net headcount in the financial year 2025-26 (FY26), although it is planning to expand its branch network. This was hinted by the bank's top brass at the Macquarie Asia Conference 2025, showing a strategic desire to consolidate and redistribute personnel and not add it outright.

 

In FY25, the total employees of ICICI Bank fell by 6,723 employees, decreasing the employee count to 129,177, while the bank opened 460 new branches. This is different from past years, when the bank was making huge recruitment, increasing employees by 9,240 in FY24 and 20,816 in FY23. The bank's strategy is in sync with industry-level trends, where automation, digital channels, and artificial intelligence are taking over more and more repetitive work, enabling the bank to redeploy employees into higher value-added work and increase productivity.

 

ICICI Bank's action has been viewed as a benchmark in operational excellence, utilizing technology to control costs and fuel growth. The leadership at the bank stressed that while branch expansion is still there, the emphasis would be on improving existing ability and investing in digital competencies, and not in raising overall manpower levels.

 

Source: Business Standard