ICICI Bank to take over pan India tea auction settlement

KOLKATA: ICICI Bank is expected to soon start handling post-auction settlement for the Rs 8,000-crore-a-year tea auction business at all centres.

The bank has already launched postauction settlements at Coonoor and Siliguri auction centres and in a few weeks, it is likely to start a similar process in Guwahati and Kolkata, the two largest tea auction centres in India, and other locations, a senior official of the Calcutta Tea Traders Association told ET. The dates to do so, though, aren’t announced yet, this official said.

“It (ICICI Bank) will take over postsettlement operations in other auction centres (apart from Coonoor and Siliguri) in a month or two,” said a Tea Board official, involved in the e-auction post-settlement module. At present, the post settlement of tea auction at the Calcutta centre is handled by State Bank of India. IndusInd Bank has been handling operation at Coonoor, Kochi, Coimbatore, Guwahati and Siliguri.

Now ICICI Bank has started dealing with Siliguri and Coonoor auction centres. Of the total tea production of 1,278 million kg in India in 2017, around 591 million kg were offered through auctions. The average auction price in 2017 was Rs 134 per kg.

The Tea Board introduced an e-auction module in June 2016 across six auction centres of the country. In September 2016, the post-auction module was implemented with BoI as the settlement banker. BoI replaced SBI and IndusInd Bank, which were the settlement bankers under the previous process.

ICICI Bank