SBI Life to tap rural banks

SBI Life is planning to tap co-operative banks and regional rural banks (RRBs) to spruce up sales of its insurance products.

SBI Life managing director and chief executive officer, Uday Sanker Roy, said that the board of five co-operative banks had cleared the proposal and a memoranda of understanding would be signed shortly. SBI Life is also looking for such tie-ups for selling insurance products with RRBs after the consolidation process of the banks were over.

Roy said the company was keen on selecting co-operative banks as bancassurance partners, despite its promoter SBI's large presence, because of extensive reach.

"Others will utilise them if we don't make use of them," he said. Currently, around 5,000 branches of the SBI group sells insurance products of SBI Life.