Postal Life Insurance setting up full-fledged investment division

Postal Life Insurance, the oldest life insurer in the country, is in the process of setting up a full-fledged investment division for generating optimal returns, according to the Department of Posts.

This move is aimed at ensuring compliance with the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority’s (IRDA) regulations which disallow outsourcing of the investment function by an insurance company.

The Postal Life Insurance and Rural Postal Life Insurance corpus is currently being managed by SBI Funds Management Pvt Ltd and UTI Asset Management Company.

The assets managed under PLI and RPLI for the year ended 2011-12 were Rs 23,010.56 crore and Rs 9,141.44 crore, respectively.

The funds are deployed, among others in Central and State Government securities, housing, infrastructure, corporate bonds, and equity, as per the investment guidelines prescribed by IRDA.

Postal Life Insurance

Postal Life Insurance was introduced in 1884 as a welfare scheme for postal employees and then extended to the employees of the telegraph department in 1888. Over the years, it has grown from a few hundred policies in 1884 to 50.07 lakh policies as on March 31, 2012.

Postal Life Insurance covers the employees of Central and State Governments, Central and State public sector undertakings, universities, government-aided educational institutions, nationalised banks, and local bodies. It also extends insurance cover to the officers and staff of the defence services and para-military forces.

Rural Postal Life Insurance

Rural Postal Life Insurance was introduced in 1993. The prime objective of the scheme is to spread awareness as well as provide insurance cover to the rural population, especially the weaker sections and women workers. It had 135.47 lakhs policies as on March 31, 2012.

ramkumar.k@thehindu.co.in

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‘Talking’ ATM machines for visually impaired in UK

New cash machines that can ‘talk’ to customers who have difficulty reading screens have been introduced in the UK.

More than three quarters of Barclays cash machines across England and Wales have had audio technology installed so they can ‘talk’ to customers, the bank said.

Blind and partially sighted people can listen to speech output on more than 3,000 of the ATMs by plugging in their earphones to listen to the options being read out, The Telegraph reported.

Barclays said it is the first major high street bank to provide the facility on such a mass scale up and down the country, which will also help people with dyslexia and anyone who finds it easier to listen to information rather than reading it.

The facility is open to anyone who would normally be able to use the cash machines, so not just Barclays customers, and a spokesman for the bank said the technology will work with most standard earphones.

A Make Money Talk campaign was launched by a UK-based charity, Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB), last September, calling for banks in the UK to provide ATMs with audio facilities for their blind and partially sighted customers.

“We are delighted that Barclays has fulfilled its commitment to our Make Money Talk campaign and become the first major bank to roll out speech enabled ATMs,” Fazilet Hadi, RNIB’s group director of inclusive society, said.

“We believe banks in the UK should provide ATMs with audio facilities for their blind and partially sighted customers, across their ATM networks,” Hadi said.

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ICICI Bank offers cash-back for home loans

India's largest private sector lender ICICI Bank launched a new home loan product for new customers with ‘cashback’ offer on each loan instalment.

Available with immediate effect, this product offers customers 1 per cent cash-back on every equated monthly instalment (EMI) for the entire loan tenure. As a part of this offer, customers will be provided the option of renewable fixed interest rates for the entire tenure, the bank said in a statement.

The cashback will start accruing from the first EMI month onwards and will get credited into the customer’s account after the completion of 36 EMI months. Subsequently, the 1 per cent cashback will be accumulated with every EMI month and will get credited to the customer’s account after every 12 EMI months.

It is at customer’s discretion to choose to avail of this cashback offering either in the form of a credit to their ICICI Bank account or in the form of a principal pay-down.

Renew fixed interest rates

Customers have also been given the option to renew their fixed rate loans for tenures of 2/3/5 years at a zero conversion fee within 30 days of completion of the initial fixed rate tenure.

They can choose to renew this multiple times till the completion of the tenure. In case the customer decides not to renew, the loan will move to floating rate by default, the bank said.

After the completion of the initial fixed rate tenure, if a customer decides to renew his fixed rate home loan, the renewable fixed rate will be decided on the prevailing ICICI Bank base rate at that point of time plus the margin decided at the time of sanction of the loan. In case the customer decides not to renew the fixed rate, the floating rate offered to him will also be decided on the prevailing base rate at that point of time plus the margin decided at the time of sanction of the loan.

The EMIs for this product will have to be paid only through auto debit to an ICICI Bank account.

Beena.parmar@thehindu.co.in

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Postal Life Insurance setting up full-fledged investment division

Postal Life Insurance, the oldest life insurer in the country, is in the process of setting up a full-fledged investment division for generating optimal returns, according to the Department of Posts.

This move is aimed at ensuring compliance with the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority’s (IRDA) regulations which disallow outsourcing of the investment function by an insurance company.

The Postal Life Insurance and Rural Postal Life Insurance corpus is currently being managed by SBI Funds Management Pvt Ltd and UTI Asset Management Company.

The assets managed under PLI and RPLI for the year ended 2011-12 were Rs 23,010.56 crore and Rs 9,141.44 crore, respectively.

The funds are deployed, among others in Central and State Government securities, housing, infrastructure, corporate bonds, and equity, as per the investment guidelines prescribed by IRDA.

Postal Life Insurance

Postal Life Insurance was introduced in 1884 as a welfare scheme for postal employees and then extended to the employees of the telegraph department in 1888. Over the years, it has grown from a few hundred policies in 1884 to 50.07 lakh policies as on March 31, 2012.

Postal Life Insurance covers the employees of Central and State Governments, Central and State public sector undertakings, universities, government-aided educational institutions, nationalised banks, and local bodies. It also extends insurance cover to the officers and staff of the defence services and para-military forces.

Rural Postal Life Insurance

Rural Postal Life Insurance was introduced in 1993. The prime objective of the scheme is to spread awareness as well as provide insurance cover to the rural population, especially the weaker sections and women workers. It had 135.47 lakhs policies as on March 31, 2012.

ramkumar.k@thehindu.co.in

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Union Bank Q2 net rises 57% on better loan recovery

Union Bank of India reported a 57 per cent jump in net profit for the second quarter ended September 30, 2012, at Rs 554 crore due to lower provisioning.

The public sector bank had posted a net profit of Rs 353 crore in the year-ago quarter. Provisioning during the quarter decreased by 22 per cent to Rs 487 crore from Rs 623 crore in the same quarter last year.

Net interest income (the difference between interest earned and expended) increased by 11 per cent to Rs 1,850 crore as against Rs 1,661 crore in Q2FY12. Non-interest income rose to Rs 546 crore, up 9 per cent from Rs 501 crore in Q2FY12.

Net interest margins declined to 3.02 per cent (from 3.21 per cent in Q2FY12). The gross non-performing assets (NPA) ratio increased to 3.66 per cent (from 3.49 per cent), while the net NPA ratio stood marginally higher at 2.06 per cent (2.04 per cent).

The capital adequacy ratio dropped to 11.39 per cent in line with Basel II norms (from 12.54 per cent in Q2FY12).

Post-results, the shares of Union Bank rallied more than 7 per cent to trade at 220.90 on the Bombay Stock Exchange.

Beena.parmar@thehindu.co.in

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