iStartup2.0 by ICICI Bank

 

India’s most comprehensive programme for start-ups

The Indian startup ecosystem has seen over 20,000 new companies being incorporated in July 2020 alone and the trend has continued in the months of August and September as well. The cumulative number of startups incorporated in India since 2010 is more than 800,000. The numbers suggest that the startup segment is clearly poised for exponential growth.

Yet for a market segment this big, technology advancements in Banking hadn’t benefitted this segment yet. Sensing an opportunity here, ICICI Bank, one of India’s leading Banks, introduced ‘iStartup2.0’ — a 360-degree holistic and most comprehensive programme for startups with a combination of banking and beyond banking services across their life stages in a single place.

This programme for startups takes care of their banking as well as beyond-banking needs such as regulatory assistance, analytics, staffing, accounting, customer acquisition and digital outreach to customers, networking with investors, etc.

‘iStartup2.0’offers customers an eponymous Current Account which is available in three variants — Platinum, Gold and Silver — the widest range by any Bank for start-ups. New businesses (up to 10 years old) including partnerships, private and public limited companies as well as limited liability partnerships can opt for the Current Account.


Banking Services offered




Making life easier for founders and saving precious time, Startups can now seamlessly open an account and get the account number instantly at the time of incorporation as the Bank has integrated its APIs with the website of the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA). What’s even more convenient is that the Bank sends an official to startups at a time of their choice to verify the original documents for KYC.

In addition to the above, the other benefits of this Current Account include availability of a dedicated Relationship Manager, premium savings account for promoters and salary accounts for employees and waiver of quarterly average balance for a year.

Further, startups have the option to customise and choose the facilities required in their account and use the single account for both domestic and international trade transactions with preferential pricing, both of which are industry first services.

Banking features


  • Access to state-of-the-art ‘InstaBIZ’ mobile application: With over 150 services, this comprehensive mobile app enables startups to complete almost all their banking transactions digitally, without visiting a bank branch. It offers many industry first features namely instant payment of GST, easy bulk collection & payments of funds through multiple modes, automatic bank reconciliation and inward/outward remittances among others
  • Availability of Corporate Internet Banking platform and Trade Online, a specialised digital platform for export-import transactions
  • Automatic bank reconciliation feature via ‘Connected Banking’ with over 40 popular accounting / ERP platforms
  • Business debit card and FD backed business credit cards
  • Preferential pricing on ‘Loan Against Securities’ and ‘Overdraft facility against Fixed Deposit’
  • Zero processing fee and commitment charges on Fixed Deposits / Overdrafts
  • Group Health & Personal Accident cover

STARTUP ASSIST

The beyond-banking services, named ‘Startup Assist’, offers services to help startups in their early stage as well as growth stage. It provides a ‘one-stop shop’ for nearly all the early stage as well as growth stage needs of a startup. As founders understand, start-ups spend a lot of time and bandwidth to reach out to individual service providers.

With ‘Startup Assist’, they get the convenience of single-point access to a host of services, including a ‘Set-up’ concierge, which gives them access to an array of experts at a discounted price to help the start up with complex services like company registration, taxation, compliance, logistics, facility management among others.

‘Beyond Banking’ features with ‘Startup Assist’ include:

  • Start-up set up concierge: Especially curated to assist startups in set up stage. Offers, at a discounted price to ICICI Bank customers, access to services like company registration, taxation, compliance, logistics, facility management among others through a dedicated concierge helpline or via an app or an email.
  • Digital concierge: A one-stop solution ranging from website development & hosting, social media marketing, SEO & SEM, etc. The digital packages come with a host of benefits for ICICI Bank customers at an exclusive discounted price offered by a partner through a dedicated helpdesk & mobile app.
  • Business Networking Solutions: Recommendations, Mentoring and connections, for ICICI Bank Customers, with the entire VC and Investor ecosystem and accelerator network.
  • Additional offers: Attractive discounts on solutions for ‘Work-From-Home’, IT hardware package deals on purchase of laptops consisting of free accessories like printer, hard disk & monitor, exclusive packages at an attractive price for ICICI Bank customers with a leading accounting software, website hosting company and for cloud services among others, andexclusive packages for advertising with a leading online streaming network with complimentary additional advertising value.

For startups, it’s the little things which matter the most. We believe that this ‘all-inone’ and comprehensive iStartup 2.0 programme will provide easy banking and beyond-banking services to start ups, free up their bandwidth from paper-intensive procedures and thus boost their business growth by improving overall productivity and efficiency.

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