The Hindu Business Line : Axis Bank to advise rural rich

Mumbai, Sept. 24 Axis Bank plans to offer wealth management services to its semi-urban and rural customers. The bank, which launched its focussed group on wealth management two years back, is now planning to give wealth advisory and wealth management tips to the customers in Tier II and Tier III cities and villages, said Ms Sonu Bhasin, Senior Vice-President, Retail Banking, Axis Bank.

There will be a central team to provide the required expertise for standarising the operations.

Customised products

The bank is working with fund houses to have a modified product to suit the needs of the rural clientele. The products will be of a comparatively smaller ticket size. “The process should be simple and standardised,” said Ms Bhasin.

She felt that even though the ticket size of the product would be small, the volumes would be large, contributing to a larger customer base. The bank has about 70 lakh customers and they plan to tap at least 10 per cent of the customer base for financial advisory and about 30,000-40,000 customers for wealth advisory services in the next three years.

Insurance plans

The bank is also in talks with insurance companies to offer a small ticket size monthly insurance product, particularly for life insurance. “We are in talks with MetLife for life insurance and with Bajaj Allianz for general insurance,” she said. Ms Bhasin felt that such insurance products would be more useful for the rural customers.

The bank offers its mutual fund schemes on the ATMs at present. There are plans to start such an offering on the Internet. The bank also plans to offer its other products on the Net. “We have been working on this for the past six months, now we hope to launch it as soon as possible,” she said.

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