With many small savings companies closing shop, Peerless General Finance & Investment Company, a residual non-banking finance company (RNBFC), has decided to take the lead and is working on a safety net product for small depositors, which will be linked to an insurance cover.
The details are still being worked out, a senior company official said. However, he added that Peerless has targeted to mop up Rs 1,050-1,100 crore in the current fiscal, from Rs 650 crore last year.
The opening up of the insurance sector to private players has helped Peerless change its business strategy and move onto more market-driven businesses. In its latest marketing drive to mop up deposits from the investing public, Peerless has tied up with Iffco-Tokio Marine to launch 'Peerless Multi Protector' -- a fixed deposit (FD) scheme with free critical illness and free accident death insurance covers. The interest offered ranges from 8.5 to 10.5 per cent for fixed deposits of 1-2 years maturity.
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"In the present falling interest scenario, our products offer attractive and guaranteed returns," S K Roy, managing director, Peerless said. As RNBFCs have to invest 90 per cent of the corpus in government securities, the funds are highly liquid.
Peerless has introduced a variety of deposit products: monthly savings schemes and children's education scheme with money-back facility for the salaried class, and daily deposit scheme for the daily wage-earner. It also offers growing interest scheme and capital growth scheme for those looking at long-term savings of seven years and beyond.
"We propose to emerge as the country's largest financial supermarket in the private sector for retail distribution of financial products, with the aim to service one out of every 20 Indians," Roy said.