Thaindian News

New Delhi, April 12 (IANS) The government Monday said it would look into the tussle between two regulatory bodies, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) and the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDA), over Unit Linked Insurance Products or ULIPS.
“We need to look at both the orders internally and discuss it,” Finance Secretary Ashok Chawla told reporters here.

ULIPs are like mutual funds with an added life cover.

On April 9, SEBI banned 14 insurance companies from selling ULIPs without its approval, saying they needed to register with the market regulator.

The companies are Aegon Religare, Aviva, Bajaj Allianz, Bharti AXA, Birla Sun, HDFC Standard, ICICI Prudential, ING Vyasa, Kotak Mahindra, Max New York, Metlife India, Reliance Life Insurance, SBI Life Insurance and TATA AIG.

IRDA, however, has asked the insurance companies which it oversees to continue selling the ULIPs.

Meanwhile, Sanjay Nirupam, member of parliament from north Mumbai, has urged Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee to ‘intervene and clarify the situation to investors’.

Nirupam expressed concern over the SEBI-IRDA tug-of-war, saying this might cause huge losses to the investors. He said the investors were unsure about what this meant or whether they should rush to redeem their investments.

“Fortunately, we are in the middle of a strong bull market and hopefully this will mitigate the impact of the regulators’ action. But it is in national interest to resolve this matter quickly,” he said.