Doha Bank Signs Agreement with Birla Sunlife for Financial Products

Doha Bank today signed an agreement with Birla Sunlife Insurance Company of India to offer various personal financial products to non-resident Indians living in Qatar. Birla Sunlife Insurance is a joint venture company between Aditya Birla group of India and Sunlife Insurance of Canada. Under the agreement, Doha Bank shall provide necessary information about the various long term investments cum protection products being offered by Birla Sunlife to the non-resident Indians residing in Qatar and facilitate movement of documents and funds if they wish to purchase such financial products. There shall be three products initially on offer namely Child Education Plan, Retirement or Pension Plan and Growth Plan. Child Education Plan is a savings cum investment product under which parents shall be able to invest small sums of money on a monthly or yearly basis for their children’s future and get the same back with assured returns after the pre-determined period. Normally, the plan matures when the child attains the age of 18 and the entire return thus can be used for his/her studies in the best universities anywhere in the world. The parents have the flexibility to decide the length of the plan and the amount which they want at maturity and accordingly monthly or yearly installment can be fixed. Mr. R. Seetharaman, Deputy Chief Executive of Doha bank said that with the spiraling cost of quality education at higher levels, it is the commitment of Doha Bank to provide financial products and services to our customers who will help them in their personal financial planning to secure the future of themselves and their families. “We partnered with Birla Sunlife because it is one of the most reputed insurance company in India and has some really good financial planning products for individuals. This is also in line with Doha Bank’s commitment to offer the best financial products and services available in the market to its customers”, Mr. Seetharaman further said. Mr. Manoj Kumar, Head of Bancassurance said that the Retirement or Pension Plan is for the people who wish to plan their own future and retire from active work after certain number of years. Here, they can invest on yearly or monthly basis or can put in a lump sum amount to take care of their future. Upon maturity, the money can be fully encashed or can be converted into annuities. Similarly, Growth or Savings Plan is for the people who are looking for higher but secured returns on a short to medium term basis. “All the schemes have an additional layer of protection as the nominee gets the pre-determined sum of money in addition to the invested amounts in the unfortunate event of the death or disability of the investor”, Kumar further said. Mr. Nani Javeri, CEO of Birla Sunlife who signed the agreement with Mr. Seetharaman said that Indians can subscribe to any of the schemes directly from Qatar through Doha Bank and can still get serviced in India if they return home before the maturity of the policy. The policies can be serviced from any of the branches of Birla Sunlife spread across India. He further said that the maturity amount is fully repatriable and can be received here, if they continue to live in Qatar. Customers just have to call our Bancassurance Division directly on 4357313 or 4352161 and set up an appointment with one of our financial advisors. Our financial advisors shall visit them at their office or residence as per the customer’s convenience and shall help them in analyzing their financial requirements and helping them decide on the maturity amount and installments. Ms Simple Vaswani, Product Manager and Varij Pujara from Birla Sunlife were also present on the occasion.

Birla Sun Life Insurance ties with banks across India to increase penetration

Friends recently during a visit to a client’s home regarding life insurance product selling I have been asked a very nice question. “Which Banks do sell BSLI Product through Bancassurance in India? Birla Sun Life Insurance (BSLI), after having made its mark in the life insurance industry as a pioneer in the Bancassurance channel of distribution, has moved into the next phase in its Bancassurance model. It has announced a tie up with five cooperative banks across India. BSLI has one of the largest numbers of bank tie-ups in the life insurance industry. Seven of the most prominent banks in India sell BSLI's plans from more than 300 locations. In the initial phase BSLI has entered into a tie up with five cooperative banks in the different regions of the country. These banks will be the model setup for the region and the experience will be replicated with other cooperative banks in the region. BSLI has set up a dedicated team within the organization to drive this initiative. The company is evaluating possible tie-ups with several other cooperative banks in the country BSLI is looking at leveraging the strong relationship banking strengths of the cooperative bank partners. The strategy will be to sell simple products from its suite initially and move up the value chain with increasing awareness levels amongst customers and the staff of the banks. The tie-ups are expected to increase BSLI's reach across the various regions in India. In the North India, BSLI has tied up with Indian Mercantile Cooperative Bank, Lucknow, which has 11 branches across the state. This was the first cooperative bank to commence sales of BSLI's plans in the month of January 2006. In Bhopal the company has entered into a tie-up with Krishna Mercantile Cooperative Bank which has a strong and loyal base of customers in the city of Bhopal. In the west BSLI has entered into a tie-up with the 'Thane Bharat Sahakari Bank', Mumbai that has 12 branches and has received the license to operate 10 more branches in the state. To increase its reach in eastern India BSLI has tied with the Nagaland State Cooperative Bank, Dimapur, which has a network of 25 branches and the Jamshedpur Urban Cooperative Bank, Jamshedpur with two branches in the city of Jamshedpur. Apart from that I would like to share some information About Sun Life Financial Inc. Sun Life Financial Inc. is a leading international financial services organization providing a diverse range of wealth accumulation and protection products and services to individuals and corporate customers. Tracing its roots back to 1865, Sun Life Financial and its partners today have operations in key markets worldwide, including Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Japan, Indonesia, India, China and Bermuda. As of 31 December 2004, the Sun Life Financial group of companies had total assets under management of USD 298 billion. Sun Life Financial Inc. trades on the Toronto (TSX), New York (NYSE) and Philippine (PSE) stock exchanges under ticker symbol "SLF". Additional information can be found at: www.sunlife.com. *Facts have been used in this article are old. That could have been changed significantly today, as on 14/11/2008.