Mumbai: Financial services firm India
Infoline on Thursday said it plans to begin mutual funds operations
in the first quarter of the next fiscal, after securing final
approval from capital market regulator SEBI.
"We have received the in-principle approval from Sebi (to
set up the asset management company). The final approval is
expected in the next 2-3 months," IIFL Chairman Nirmal Jain
told reporters here.
IIFL plans to start AMC operations on its own but may
look at the option of partnering with any existing player in
the future, Jain said.
At present, IIFL has operations in equity and derivative
brokerage and investment management amongst others. The
company is operating from 1,500 locations.
It plans to increase the current branch strength, around
500 by 25-30 per cent over the next one year, while the number
of franchise now at 1,000, will be doubled during the period.
Commenting on its mortgage business, Jain said the
company has grown its mortgage business to a loan-book size
of Rs 600 crore.
"We now have a loan-book of Rs 600 crore. We are
currently offering the loan products from 20 centres, which
would be scaled to 40 over the next 3-4 months," Jain
said.
India Infoline has also received approval from the
National Housing Bank to start a housing finance company, and
expects to commence operations in the near future.
Moving ahead, IIFL also plans to scale up its operations
in Singapore and has applied for a 'securities licence' in the
UK, Jain said.
This would enable its clients to access the London equity
market. The company also has operations in Dubai and US.
India Infoline today tied up with Yes Bank to offer
brokerage services to the latter's customers. The agreement
will give Yes Bank customers multiple options for trading in
equity shares, online or off-line, on the premier bourses--BSE
and NSE-- in the cash and derivatives segments.
The offering will be a three-in-one account, where the
bank account and depository account will be with Yes Bank
while the broking account will be with India Infoline.
The customers will be able to transfer funds from their
Yes bank account for investments into capital markets.
PTI
First Published: Thursday, December 10, 2009, 21:41