Insurance funds will soon start flowing to special economic zone projects, agro-processing and infrastructure projects, domestic satellite services and social infrastructure like educational institutions and hospitals.
L&T plans to launch as asset management company and has also collaborated with US based Travelers for a non-life insurance venture.
SBI is planning one man branches and FSCs to tap the mass affluent and HNI customers in cities.
Foreign banks operating in India want the Reserve Bank of India to prepare a vision document on policy changes they can expect after March 2009.
State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, Bank of Baroda and Bank of India are set to book mark-to-market losses on the exposures of their foreign offices to credit derivatives, with the spreads on these widening since international lenders turned risk-averse following the crisis in the US subprime (or high-risk home loan) market. Credit derivatives are instruments for which the underlying asset is a loan or a bond.
Private insurers are planning to launch property title insurance covers in India soon. Foreign investment is therefore likely to enter the Indian real estate market.
General insurers violated IRDA norms on discounts. IRDA reveals plans for 2008
State Bank of India's (SBI) two-year-long wait to expand its operations in the United States is set to end with the New York State Banking Department (NYSBD) clearing the bank's application for opening another branch, senior SBI officials confirmed.
At the start of April, State Bank of India (SBI) and ICICI Bank, the country's two largest banks, reviewed the situation. They felt the resource-raising madness was over and that interest rates on bulk deposits would drop automatically with credit growth expected to temper between June and September.
Insurance companies have started offering IT, IT-enabled services, business process outsourcing and non-manufacturing companies with policies due for renewal on January 1 discounts of more than 60 per cent.
The sub-prime mess has presented the foreign units of domestic banks with lucrative investment opportunities. Global banks, struck by a severe liquidity crunch and risk aversion, are selling a lot of their investments in debt of Indian companies at a discount.
Till March 2007, the bank had invested a total of Rs 1,973 crore (Rs 19.73 billion) in shares of companies. In the nine months since then, it has added Rs 3,000 crore (Rs 3 billion) to its investment kitty, making investments of over Rs 100 crore (Rs 1 billion) in a clutch of blue-chip companies including GMR Infrastructure, Godrej Industries, Maruti Suzuki, Cairn India and DLF, besides closest rival ICICI Bank.
Seventy five per cent of the non-life insurance industry, which consists of fire, engineering and motor covers, was subject to rates prescribed by the Tariff Advisory Committee up to December 2006, irrespective of whether the risk was good or bad. The industry was partially detariffed on January 1, 2007, but the regulator restricted the discounts insurers could give to minimise the dangers of an irrational price war.
State Bank of India (SBI) is asking prospective partners for its general insurance foray to pay it Rs 300 crore (Rs 3 billion) to Rs 350 crore (Rs 3.5 billion) as entry premium, insurance industry sources said.
The focus on instances of excesses by banks in their attempts to recover money has had the unintended effect of encouraging some borrowers to dare banks to take steps to recover loans.
Banks plan to charge a levy on unutilised portion of credit.
The Hinduja Group plans to enter the financial services space in India with a bang. Apart from plans to set up life insurance, non-life insurance and asset management companies, the group is also working towards areas such as wealth management, broking and portfolio management services. The group has finalised its partners for setting up a holding company, which will have three business arms offering wealth management, broking and portfolio management services.
Banks are sensing warning signals of potential loan defaults from gems and jewellery exporters as the appreciating rupee continues to dent their profits. Loan accounts of a few diamond and jewellery exporters are already showing signs of stress, with banks receiving delayed payments.
Farmers will no longer have to wait endlessly for claiming their payments from the government.
The total number of Indian agents registering with the Million Dollar Round Table (MDRT), a prestigious international trade association of insurance agents, has more than tripled to 1,931 agents for 2007 compared with 532 in 2006. To qualify for the MDRT, an Indian insurance agent has to get a premium (read business) of Rs 23.92 lakh to his insurance company or earn a commission of Rs 5.98 lakh.
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