Tuesday, 2 September 2014

Insurance giants, banks eye New Town


MUMBAI: Public-sector insurance giant New India Assurance (NIA) and re-insurance giant General Insurance Corporation (GIC) of India have evinced interest in setting up offices at the financial hub at New Town, Kolkata.

Public-sector lenders such as Central Bank of India, Jammu & Kashmir Bank and Dena Bank are also weighing options to take part in the proposed financial cluster.

State Bank of India, which has already set up east India's first e-bank there, has also shown interest to buy more land at the financial hub to establish its training centre.

A top-level team, led by state urban development and municipal affairs minister Firhad Hakim and chairman of West Bengal Housing Infrastructure Development Corporation (Hidco) Debashis Sen is in Mumbai to hard-sell the New Town financial hub. Prior to the investors' meet at Bandra-Kurla Complex which houses India's only international financial cluster, the Hidco team along with IL&FS officials, met top honchos of insurance companies and banks.

At one such meet, NIA CMD G Srinivasan indicated at shifting its zonal operations from Kolkata's central business district to the New Town finance hub. The public-sector general insurer will put forward the issue of buying a plot in its board meet. GIC CMD Ashok Kumar Roy has also taken interest in building its re-insurance facility at the proposed second cluster of the finance hub, which has 23 plots on offer.

"There is a great prospect in re-insurance segment. If Bengal takes an initiative in this regard, we'll be happy to join. A joint workshop has been planned between GIC and Hidco in the second week of October to take this idea forward," Roy reportedly told Hidco officials.

On the state government reaching out to investors, Hakim told TOI: "This is a confidence-building exercise. It gives a feel-good factor. Answering directly to the prospective investors has some future impact. We hope to see it soon at New Town."

Hakim and Sen will meet chairman of Life Insurance Corporation of India on Wednesday. A meeting with the HDFC Bank chairman is also on the cards.

Replying to queries at the investors meet, which was organized by Hidco in association with The Economic Times and transaction partner IL&FS, Hakim said: "You come and feel the difference. There is no problem of availability of land in Bengal." He assured investors of fast single-window clearance for all the deals.

In September 2012, Hidco had organized a similar event to woo financial organizations in Mumbai. Showing a 10-minute presentation on the prospects of the "financial gateway to east India", Sen said: "A 38-acre land and plug-n-play units are ready. We have got representatives of as many as 23 insurance firms, mutual funds and foreign banks at the meet today."

In April last year, Hidco received applications from Union Bank of India, Bank of India, Bank of Baroda and two private financial institutions for space at the international financial hub in New Town. In the first phase, six financial and banking institutes had submitted applications of which UBI, UCO Bank, NIC, West Bengal Financial Corporation and West Bengal Infrastructure Development Finance Corporation (WBIDFC) were selected. Allahabad Bank and SBI had already taken land near the hub.


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