SBI Life Hopes To Achieve Over 100% Growth In New Business - July 21, 2008

SBI Life is looking at reporting over 100% growth in new business in the first quarter of 2008-09 over the same period last fiscal, when the size of the new business amounted to Rs 426 crore.

SBI Life, in West Bengal, is all set to undertake new business worth Rs 580 crore in the current fiscal, up from Rs 300 crore in 2007-08. At the national level, SBI Life is expecting to achieve Rs 8,500 crore of new business and a total business of Rs 10,500 crore in the current fiscal. SBI Life is planning to add around 250 new offices in 2008-09 to the present network of 187 offices across the country. The company''s assets under management stood at 10,493 crore as on March 31, 2008.

SBI, ICICI Bank, HDFC To Benefit From DDT Change

Mumbai: Banks such as State Bank of India, ICICI Bank and housing finance companies such as HDFC are expected to benefit from the budgetary proposal to removal of the double taxation of dividends paid by a subsidiary company and its parent.

These institutions have large number of subsidiaries and earn a considerable income as dividend from these subsidiaries. At present, dDividend Distribution Tax (DDT) is at 15 per cent. The budgetary proposal now allows the set-off of the tax paid by the subsidiary on dividends declared to parent company. ICICI Bank has 17 domestic and international subsidiaries. SBI has seven associate banks, four foreign subsidiaries and four non-banking subsidiaries. HDFC has 12 associates and subsidiaries. Based on last fiscal''s figures, and calculating DDT at 15 per cent, the amounts these institutions would save would probably work out to be Rs 89.55 crore for SBI, Rs 67.2 crore for ICICI Bank and Rs 17.7 crore for HDFC.

SBI Life To Ramp Up Bank Network

Hyderabad: SBI Life is planning to increase its operations in the rural and semi-urban areas by better utilisation of State Bank of India (SBI) branch network and increasing the number of agents. They want to make a substantial difference in our rural reach by doubling the number of agents by 2008-09 (from current 34,000) and fuller-utilisation of SBI branch network in rural areas. SBI Life will unveil a health product in the first quarter of the next fiscal and implement direct payment of premium through core banking network from May. The company, which earned a profit of Rs 37.74 crore at the end of December 31, 2007 by wiping out all accumulated losses, is planning to foray the micro insurance sector in Andhra Pradesh. They have implemented a pilot micro insurance project, Grameenn Shakti, in Bhubaneswar for Self Help Groups (SHGs) in December, 2007 and give life cover to 2.5 lakh women.