Mumbai: ICICI, the country''s second-biggest lender, will raise $1.5 billion of yen-denominated loan — the biggest offshore loan for an Indian financial sector borrower — sources familiar with the deal said.

The loan will be raised in three different maturity types - one year, three-year and five-year loans - of equal sizes with the five-year portion being the longest maturing loan to be issued by ICICI, sources added.

The 364-day tranche will pay 15 basis points (bps) over the one-year London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor), the three-year tranche will pay 38 bps over Libor, the five-year tranche will pay 55 bps over Libor.

The debt issue comes at a time when lending by Indian banks are growing at an annual pace of 29 per cent while deposit growth in these banks is a more modest 20 per cent.

ICICI Bank is currently Asia''s biggest issuer of offshore bonds outside of Japan and is trying to feed fast-growing loan market amidst sluggish deposits growth.

A consortium comprising Bayern LB, BNP Paribas, Calyon, Commerzbank, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, Intesa Sanpaolo, Natixis, Standard Chartered Bank and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp is arranging the issue, sources familira with the development said.

ICICI Bank plans to complete the loan syndication by the first week of September. The bank''s offshore senior debt is rated BBB-minus by Standard & Poor''s Ratings Services.

ICICI Bank jointly with IBM Corp and World Bank''s private lending arm IFC will offer small and medium-enterprises in the country with an innovative online resource center - SME Toolkit - to help them start up, finance and grow their business.

ICICI Bank executive director V Vaidyanathan along with IBM India / South Asia managing director Shanker Annaswamy and IFC advisory services general manager for South Asia Anil Sinha launched a a free online resource centre at a press conference in Mumbai.

The SME Toolkit (www.india.smetoolkit.org) contains up-to-date information and tools to enable small and medium enterprises in emerging markets learn how to increase their productivity, efficiency and capacity, as well as improve their access to capital and new markets. The India toolkit is available both as online as well as offline modules which includes the portal, offline CDs, mobile alerts and classroom training. The online module is available in both English and Hindi.