ICICI Bank was formed in 1955 at the initiative of the World Bank, the Government of India and representatives of Indian industry. The principal objective was to create a development financial institution for providing medium-term and long-term project financing to Indian businesses. Until the late 1980s, ICICI Bank primarily focused its activities on project finance, providing long-term funds to a variety of industrial projects. With the liberalization of the financial sector in India in the 1990s, ICICI Bank transformed its business from a development financial institution offering only project finance to a diversified financial services provider that, along with its subsidiaries and other group companies, offered a wide variety of products and services.