Brazen cheating happens in Indian banks when they sell financial products. The courts are taking action, but unless there is political will, nothing will change.
Banks don't want to turn brokers of insurance products in India as it will make them responsible for what they sell. Not something they want to do!
Expense Account, Mint When I met the head of one of the largest private sector life insurance companies last week in Mumbai, he was clear that the 1 October 2013 deadline to re-engineer the traditional (money-back, endowment, whole life) plans in life insurance would at most be breached by two weeks to a month. (Market-linked...
Expense Account, Mint India’s third insurance regulator J. Hari Narayan demitted office last week and it would be no exaggeration to say that Indian insurance rules were rewritten during his tenure in the teeth of very strong opposition and lobbying by the industry. The regulator worked at turning an institution that looked at market development...
Expense Account, Mint When one lives in a country of over a billion people, big numbers seldom come as a surprise. But when I looked at the number of Rs.1.5 trillion, I was astounded. That’s about 1.5% of the Indian gross domestic product, was the first thought. But the number in the excel sheet looked back...
Expense Account, Mint An increasingly consumer-focused insurance regulator pushed the envelope just a bit further last week. On 5 October, the insurance regulator asked SBI Life to refund Rs.84 crore to policy holders, you can read the order here:http://www.irda.gov.in/ADMINCMS/cms/frmGeneral_Layout.aspx?page=PageNo1798&flag=1. The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (Irda) rules for group insurance (notified in 2005) mandate that beyond...
Expense Account, Mint The relief across the financial sector is palpable. North Block is now under the control of a minister who has not delegated the work to a compromised cabal. And even better, he is a person who understands the markets and finance. After the mutual fund announcements last week, this week the ministerial...
Expense Account, Mint The increasing confidence of the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (Irda) showed two weeks ago when it slapped a fine of Rs 1.47 crore on HDFC Standard Life for some five violations out of a list of 25 charges. Indian regulators are not known to levy large sums as fines. Probably the...
Expense Account, Mint How long have you driven your car? How long has that toaster lasted? I’d assume that unless you bought some untested Chinese brand that is built to self-destruct on one use, they’ve lasted a reasonable time and you’ve not had reason to take them back to the store. And assuming you bought...
Expense Account, Mint A committee set up by the insurance regulator earlier this month is all set to look into a host of issues, the chief being product structures in traditional life insurance products. There is arbitrage in the market as the unit-linked insurance plan (Ulip) got a cleaner structure in 2010, but the traditional...