Kotak Mahindra mulls tie up with general insurance co

Mumbai-based Kotak Mahindra Bank is looking at tying up with a general insurance company to distribute the latter's products. This apart, it is also planning to increase its branches to 100 by March 2007 from the present 40.

Addressing mediapersons, K V S Manian, group head (retail liabilities and branch banking), Kotak Mahindra Bank Limited, said that they have been providing various financial services like life insurance, retail finance, stock broking and mutual funds to their customers. Now they would also like to become a corporate agent for a general insurance company.

"We are still in preliminary stages with regard to this decision. But we will most likely be tying up with a private general insurance company within this year," Manian added.

"This apart, we are also looking at increasing our branches from 40 in 25 locations to 70 by March 2006 and then to 100 by March 2007," he said, adding that they expect a total business of Rs 10,000 crore by 2005-06 with a growth of between 50 per cent and 60 per cent.

The bank has ended the year 2004-05 with a total business of Rs 6,000 crore with the retail liabilities being around Rs 800 crore. The total mutual funds assets under management during the same period has been Rs 400 crore. The bank has around 75,000 customers in the retail liabilities segment with 2,500 being in Hyderabad. The bank's fee-based income in the same segment has been around 40-50 per cent.

"In the short term, we are looking at setting up our second branch in Andhra Pradesh. This is most likely to be in Secunderabad, and within the next one-and-a-half-year we may set up branches in Vijayawada and Visakhapatnam as well," Manian said.

"We will also be increasing our focus on setting up branches in those areas that have commodity markets," he added.