India's Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority IRDA is expected to approve the first private sector applications to enter the pensions business within the next few weeks, opening up a new industry heretofore monopolized by the government's Life Insurance Corporation, says Desmond Chan, vice president and regional pensions director at AIG in Hong Kong. AIG hopes its insurance joint venture, Tata AIG, will be the first to receive a pensions license.
Last year LIC's monopoly on the life insurance and non-life insurance industries was opened, just as the Unit Trust of India's old monopoly on mutual funds was abolished a decade ago. Because no domestic insurance industry was ever allowed to develop,...
