The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) plans to come up with revised IPO guidelines soon to enable companies enter the capital markets, according to its Chairman, TS Vijayan.
Asked about the companies that have shown interest, Vijayan said, “I think there are a couple of companies keen to go for the IPO, but don’t know whether they have applied for clearance.”
He was speaking here on Wednesday on the sidelines of a press conference to announce an international conference, IIRFA-2016, to be hosted by the Insurance Information Bureau of India on May 26-27.
Recent reports indicated that big players like HDFC Standard Life and ICICI Prudential Life Insurance were firming up plans to raise funds from the capital markets by diluting equity.
On another front, the increase in foreign investment cap has brought in nearly ₹15,000 crore into the domestic insurance sector in the past year. It has come in different forms but predominantly through the equity route, the IRDAI Chairman said. The Insurance Laws (Amendment) Bill was passed in March 2015, increasing the FDI limit to 49 per cent from 26 per cent.
The overall growth in the insurance industry during the last fiscal was around 12 per cent in life and 14 per cent in non-life insurance. The best performer was health insurance, which saw a big 40 per cent jump. The IRDAI Chairman said health insurance penetration was still low in India and there is potential for higher growth.
The conference will have twin themes of Ratemaking and Insurance Analytics and Financial Inclusion in Insurance. Special sessions on ‘Life Insurance Analytics’ and ‘Disaster Management and Financing’, apart from panel discussions on ‘Fraud Control using Big Data Analytics’ and the integral linkages between micro-finance and micro-insurance, will also be held as part of the conference, said R Raghavan, CEO of IIB.