ICICI Prudential ties up with 10 RRB's sponsored by Bank of India

Mumbai: ICICI Prudential Life Insurance has expanded the scope of its five-year old bancassurance partnership with Bank of India to tie-up with ten regional rural banks sponsored by it across the country. Together, the ten banks have nearly 1,000 branches across semi-urban and rural areas, giving ICICI Prudential a much expanded distribution base through which it can sell its product range, including some specific rural products.

The regional rural banks — Avadh Gramin Bank, Barabanki Gramin Bank, Farrukhabad Gramin Bank, Chandrapur Gadchiroli Gramin Bank, Bhandara Gramin Bank, Ratnagiri Sindhudurg Gramin Bank, Solapur Gramin Bank, Baitarani Gramya Bank, Jharkhand Gramin Bank and Narmada Malwa Gramin Bank — operate in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa, Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh. With the robust relationships that they have with their large customer base, they are ideally positioned to deliver life insurance products, which are complementary to the asset and liability products that the banks already distribute.

According to Shikha Sharma, managing director and CEO, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance, "Our tie-up with Bank of India is one of our earliest partnerships, and we are delighted to further expand and strengthen this by tying up with its rural banks. The banks have deep, ongoing relationships with their customers, and we are confident that they are well positioned to cross-sell both savings and protection products to them. Moreover, these partnerships come at a time when ICICI Prudential is significantly ramping up its distribution across the country and we are certain that our newest partners will play a significant role in this ramp-up".

Said K R Kamath, executive director, Bank of India, "As we come to the close of our centenary celebrations, we recognise that our regional rural banks are one of our strongest assets with a wide customer base in five states. Going forward, we will continue on the path to modernise our RRBs, not only in terms of infrastructure and technology, but also in terms of the products offered, including life insurance. Extending our partnership with ICICI Prudential to them is a giant leap in the right direction, and we are certain that it will be a win-win situation for both".

ICICI Prudential and Bank of India entered into a partnership under the bancassurance model in December 2001. Since then, Bank of India has steadily grown the life insurance segment of its business, showing a growth of 133 over the past year to ramp up Rs 104 crore of life insurance premium since inception. The bank offers the complete range of ICICI Prudential products, including education plans, savings and investment plans and retirement solutions, which have grown to become available across over 1360 branches of Bank of India across the country.