ICICI Lombard to issue insurance products

By Our Corporate Reporter

CHENNAI, AUG. 20. The joint venture between ICICI and the Canadian insurance company, Lombard, is ready to launch its products shortly as it had obtained the third round of clearance (R3) from the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority, according to Ms. Kalpana Morparia, executive director, ICICI.

In an informal chat with presspersons here today, she said an announcement on the launch of products would be made soon.

Asked about the proposal to merge ICICI and ICICI Bank, she said originally a 3 to 5 year timeframe was envisaged for the amalgamation. With the transition taking place, however, it could happen in 12 to 18 months, she said.

To a question about whether ICICI and ICICI Bank were not competing with each other by offering similar products to customers, she said there was a clear demarcation between the two and there was no competition between them. ICICI Bank had, of course, a lot of products and these were marketed by a `common pool' of officials drawn from ICICI and ICICI Bank. To satisfy the regulators both were functioning as different entities, and the merger, when happened, would make the task much easier, she said. ``We were talking about universal banking which would help access to lower cost deposits much more easier'', she said and added ``we were the first to articulate this point. At an appropriate time, we will file the application with the authorities concerned''.

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Section  : Business
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