New Delhi: The credit card market in India has a new player – LIC. Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) the largest financial institution of the country has announced its entry into the credit card business. LIC will have Corporation Bank and GE Money as the equity partners for this venture.

GE with its great ability to leverage technology was the obvious choice, though GE had earlier partnered with the country’s largest bank – State Bank of India in its credit card venture.

An LIC official said “There is no conflict of interest as the corporation was looking at credit cards largely to serve its own purpose of enabling transactions.” With a large customer base of 22 crores, LIC has embarked on ambitious technology programmes, which will enable its customers to pay their premium from anywhere, anytime.

“Unless we use technology extensively, it is not possible to bring down transaction costs,” said LIC chairman TS Vijayan. “This partnership brings excellent management skills, credit card experience and unparalleled distribution networks under one roof and we look forward to working with each other,” he added.

This joint venture will help the LIC policy holders to pay the premiums with their own credit card. This will be very convenient for the customers and bring down the transaction cost for LIC. So far, the corporation had not enabled premium payments through credit cards because of high charges.

In addition to GE Money, LIC has decided to include Corporation Bank as a banking partner. The equity in the credit card venture will be held by LIC’s two other subsidiaries — LIC Housing Finance and LIC Mutual Fund.

“The proposed venture would leverage LIC and Corporation Bank’s strong brand and extensive branch, ATM, and sales distribution network, and GE Money’s global and local expertise in credit cards, business management processes, and technology-driven platforms. The JV aims to become a major player in India’s fast-growing credit card industry,” a joint statement said. The new company will be headquartered in the National Capital Region (NCR).