Life Insurance Corporation of India has said that it will enter into a joint venture for the launch of its credit card business, the Business Standard has said. The credit card will be launched during the first week of September 2008, which was previously scheduled for March 1, 2008.
According to Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC), the joint venture company will be named LIC Card Services and the company will be set up in keeping with RBI regulations. According to RBI regulations, the new company has to be registered before it enters into the credit card business. The company is also in talks with Visa and Mastercard as either of them would be the payment gateway.
A major share of the stake in the joint venture would be owned by LIC which would be about 40% and the rest 30-35% would be owned by GE Money. In September 2007, LIC had signed agreements with GE Money India, Corporation Bank, LIC Housing Finance and LIC Mutual Fund to start a new credit card company, but nothing could materialize as it had to improve its software facilities.
The company said that it is improving its networks so that it can support the marketing of the card and is planning to offer unsecured loans against the card.