Wednesday, September 9, 2009

IDBI, Union Bank to foray into asset management biz in 6 mths

In a bid to diversify their operations, two state-run banks -- Union Bank and IDBI Bank -- are planning to venture into asset management space and have approached the market regulator SEBI for approval.
While IDBI Bank had filed application for licence in January this year, Union Bank of India had submitted its papers with the regulator in February.
All these proposals are at the advance stage of clearance, official sources said.
During the course of the year these banks are expected to get licence and thereafter they can start asset management, sources added.
Meanwhile, the country's third largest private sector lender, Axis Bank has already got the regulator's approval to start asset management business.
The Union Bank of India has set up an asset management firm with KBC Group of Belgium. The joint venture, in which Union Bank owns 51 per cent stake expects to start operations during the current fiscal.
Another public sector lender IDBI Bank has board approval to set up the asset management company either as a wholly-owned subsidiary or as a joint venture.
Currently, there are five mutual funds either fully or partly owned by Indian banks, along with foreign partners.
These include Baroda Pioneer Mutual Fund, Canara Robeco Mutual Fund, ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund, Principal Mutual Fund and SBI Mutual Fund.
The combined average AUM of the 30 fund houses stood at Rs 5,38,736.43 crore at the end of July as monthly AUM figures of many fund houses were not available.
Last month, the total average AUM of 35 fund houses had surged nearly five per cent to Rs 6,70,936.61 crore, according to the data available on the website of the Association of Mutual Fund of India (AMFI).
Fund houses which saw an increase in their average AUM in July include Canara Robeco MF, Deutsche MF, IDFC MF, Religare MF and LIC MF.
Some of the fund houses like HDFC MF witnessed additions of Rs 5,168.20 crore to its assets under management (AAUM), while ICICI Prudential MF's AUMs grew by Rs 3,159.09 crore in July.

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