Life insurance, MF JVs ready to list in 18 months, hive-off can unshackle cards: Canara Bank

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

Canara Bank expects its mutual fund and insurance joint ventures to apply for their IPOs over the next 18 months as the other shareholders have agreed in principle to the listing plan, its managing director K Satyanarayana Raju has said. In an interview with Atmadip Ray, Raju also said the bank's move to spin off its credit card business will help grow this business by leaps and bounds. Edited excerpts:You earlier told ET that the bank's management decided to list Canara HSBC Life Insurance and Canara Robeco Asset Management. How far have you progressed in this direction? We have spoken to the other shareholders and advised the respective management in these subsidiaries to prepare a road map for listing.

The other shareholders and the respective boards have in principle agreed to the plan. These companies may be ready to apply for their initial public offers (IPO) in the next 15 to 18 months. Canara Bank holds 51% each in these subsidiaries.

(HSBC holds 26% and Punjab National Bank 23% in the life insurance joint venture while Japan's Orix Cor holds 49% in the asset managementJV.)You have decided to hive off your credit card business and that would involve another subsidiary. What is the thinking behind this move? We want to hive off our credit card business, which can grow exponentially if we can take a very focused approach. We have around 620,000 cardholders, which is nothing compared to the bank's 8 million-strong customer base.

This means we can grow our credit card business by leaps and bounds if we can leverage the existing customer base and cross-sell the product to them. To do this, we are planning to transfer the credit card vertical into a subsidiary so that more attention can be given to this. We have