Non-life insurance biz in Dena Bank's sight

Dena Bank, a leading mid-size public sector bank, is eyeing the non-life insurance business in the near future as the insurance market has matured in the country.

Talking to Business Standard, the chairman and managing director of Dena Bank P L Gairola informed that the bank is willing to make its mark in non-life insurance business in future.

Gairola was on the visit of Chhala village at Gandhinagar on the occasion of the launch of bio-metric ATM. At present Dena Bank's presence in the non life insurance is limited only to its tie up with Oriental Insurance as its distributor.

"We would like to get into non-life insurance business, provided we find a company with expertise in the same field," said Gairola. In the present scenario the bank would not like to get into non life insurance business on its own mainly because it does not have the kind of funds required to enter the insurance business.

Also the return of investment in case of insurance business is longer then any other business which is also a reason for the bank to stay away. from the insurance business for some time. "The returns starts by 7th year of operation in insurance business," informs Gairola.

However, Dena Bank has come back strongly in last couple of years and emerged as a major player in financial sector, said Gairola. Recently, the bank has launched the core banking system at its Mahim branch in Mumbai.

The bank is planning to bring around 92 percent of its business under the core banking solution in next four years.

While commenting upon the buzz over the media reports that Bangalore-based Canara Bank is looking at acquiring Dena Bank, Gairola said, "We are not in talks with Canara Bank about any kind of merger with our bank". He further said its just a market rumour that has not stand.