ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company (ICICI Pru), which enters the capital market next week, is in active discussions with newly-licensed payments banks and small finance banks to expand its distribution network, a top company official said.
The country’s largest private life insurer will also look at technology-aided non-traditional channels to grow its reach, Puneet Nanda, Executive Director, ICICI Pru, told BusinessLine here on Wednesday.
ICICI Pru will continue to invest and strengthen the existing multi- channel architecture, he added.
“As we speak, we are in the process of pitching with almost all those who have got licences for payments banks and small finance banks. Hectic discussions are going on. They are themselves interested. In fact, we have a dedicated team whose only job is do alliances,” Nanda said.
As many as eight players are expected to launch payments banks, a new model of banks conceptualised by the Reserve Bank of India.
In August 2015, the RBI had given in-principle licences to 11 entities for launch of payments banks. Three entities, however, backed out later, leaving only eight in the fray.
Nanda said that ICICI Pru was open to tie-ups irrespective of the size of the institution.
“Big or small does not matter. Anybody who can acquire a customer base with access to good quality database, we may be interested,” he said. Stating that the world is changing very fast, Nanda pointed out that new ideas and new thoughts are coming from smaller players than the big ones. “Start-ups have shaken the world. We want to ride with them,” Nanda said.
Nanda said that ICICI Pru was always open to inorganic growth as long as the acquisition made sense from a value-accretive basis. “Having said that, at this point in time there is nothing on the table.”
He also ruled out any capital-raising by ICICI Pru in the next couple of years. “Given the strong capital position we have (double the regulator’s requirement), at least in the medium term whatever aspirations we have there is capital to support it,” he said.
Still the leaderMeanwhile, data from the recent Life Insurance Council report showed that ICICI Pru continued to be ahead of its peers in retail weighted received premium (RWRP) from April-July 2016. While ICICI Pru clocked RWRP of ₹1,427 crore, its nearest competitor — the proposed combined entity of HDFC Life and Max Life — registered ₹1,292 crore.