Mumbai: CRISIL on April 14 reaffirmed its ratings assigned to various financial instruments of ICICI Bank Ltd, including fixed deposits, bonds and debentures, despite the withdrawals of about Rs 550 crore at bank's branches and ATMs over the weekend.

"CRISIL understands that the total withdrawal over the weekend, including regular banking transactions, was to the order of Rs 550 crore," CRISIL said in Mumbai in a release.

The bank's executive director Chanda Kochhar, when contacted, said during the three day period withdrawals to the tune of Rs 400 crore were in course of normal transactions while the balance Rs 150 crore was due to "panic run".

The rating agency said the private sector bank managed the situation comfortably by using a part of its current account balance with the Reserve Bank of India and excess holdings of government securities.

The reaffirmation of bonds/debentures at "AAA", fixed deposits at "FAAA" and short- term debt P1+ follows the incident of withdrawals between April 11 to 13, CRISIL said.

Meanwhile, in spite of today being a public holiday on account of Ambedkar Jayanti, the bank kept its branches in Gujarat and Mumbai open to build customer confidence.

The bank's branch managers were given the option to close their branches early in case if there were not much of transactions as the pressure of withdrawals, which were witnessed on Friday night, has subsided considerably.

On large-scale withdrawals over the weekend, the rating agency said it highlights the issues all banks face under these circumstances including timely availability of system support, operational issues of cash management with large ATM network and need to maintain varied sources of liquidity.

The bank in a statement on April 14 set at rest speculation that it faced financial difficulties due to its exposure to capital market.

"The total exposure to equity shares in its proprietary trading portfolio was about Rs 18 crore while funded exposure to brokers secured by shares was to the tune of Rs four crore on March 31, 2003," the statement said.

The non-fund based exposure to brokers as on March 31, net of cash margins or bank guarantees was only about Rs 56 crore, it said.

The bank said it maintains at least 25 per cent of its demand and time liabilities in the form of liquid government securities to meet the statutory liquidity ratio norms and 4.75 per cent in form of cash with the Apex Bank to meet the cash reserve ratio requirements, both of which provide liquidity comfort.

PTI