LIC Cards, a subsidiary of the country’s largest life insurer Life Insurance Corporation of

RELATED ARTICLES LIC launches new child plan Jeevan Ankur in Nagpur LIC launches Jeevan Ankur child plan LIC to invest Rs 1.95 lakh cr across asset classes this fiscal LIC to invest $37 billion in FY12

India (LIC), is aiming to sell half a million credit cards in financial year 2010-11. In the one year since it started its operations, LIC Cards has built a base of 50,000 credit card holders.

LIC Cards has an arrangement with Mangalore-based Corporation Bank for the credit card business. LIC’s credit card is a card branded as that of LIC but actually is issued by Corporation Bank. LIC owns 26.34 per cent of the public sector Corpora

-tion Bank.

According to a senior Corporation Bank official, 50,000 LIC credit cards have been issued to the existing LIC policyholders. These cards have an outstanding of around Rs 10 crore. These cards have been sold to customers paying more than

Rs 25,000-50,000 premium annually on their life insurance policies.

LIC Cards is bullish on its plan to ramp up its customer base when most of the credit card lenders have flushed out around 20.35 lakh cards from the system in 2009-10.

LIC’s credit cards subsidiary is looking at adding another 3-4.5 lakh cards in the next financial year to take the tally to above half a million. Asked about where the numbers come from, the official said, “LIC has a customer base of more than 22 crore (220 million) policyholders and that is the target market.”

LIC hopes its policyholders will also channelise policy premium payments through its credit card. “We have seen satisfactory spends across the customer base. People are using their cards to pay at merchant establishments apart from paying their LIC premium through the card,” the official said.

According to an MoU between both the entities, LIC will market the card and mobilise applications, while due diligence and card management will be managed by Corporation Bank. The credit risk on the LIC credit cards is on the books of Corporation Bank, which also sells its own credit cards.