Ulip's Ban Waived?

The capital markets and insurance regulators have agreed to maintain current status on unit-linked insurance products, television channel CNBC TV18 showed Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee as saying on Monday.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) and the Insurance Regulatory Development Authority (IRDA) have also agreed to abide by legal verdict, Mukherjee told reporters after meeting the heads of the regulatory bodies.

Late last Friday, the SEBI said it barred 14 life insurance companies from issuing unit-linked insurance products (ULIPs) without the capital markets regulator's approval with immediate effect.

In response, insurance regulator IRDA on Saturday assured policyholders their investments are safe and issues arising out of SEBI orders will be addressed in the "appropriate forum".

(Reporting by Manoj Kumar; editing by Malini Menon)
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Source:Yahoo Finance >

http://in.news.yahoo.com/137/20100412/748/tbs-mukherjee-sebi-irda-to-maintain-ulip.html

SEBI Bans 14 Insurance companies from selling ULIPs

Market regulator SEBI has banned 14 major insurance companies from raising money from the public for any unit-linked insurance products (ULIPs), fueling a fresh war between SEBI and insurance watchdog IRDA, reports CNBC-TV18's.

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The 14 companies are SBI Life, ICICI Prudential, TATA AIG, Aegon Religare Life, Aviva Life, Bajaj Allianz, Bharti AXA, Birla Sunlife, HDFC Standard Life, ING Vysya Life, Kotak Mahindra old mutual life, Max New York Life, Metlife India and Reliance Life.

While passing the order late last night, the Securities and Exchange Board of India said the entities have not obtained any registration from the regulator though the ULIPs launched by them had an investment component in the nature of mutual funds. The order is to come into force with immediate effect.

SEBI had issued show cause notices to all these companies in January.

Commenting on the same, IRDA Head said it would approach the court to decide ULIP regulatory jurisdiction, reports CNBC-TV18 quoting NewsWire18. Further he said they were awaiting a copy of SEBI’s order banning ULIP sale and was not aware of any such move.

Unsure about when the court would decide on the ULIP regulator, he said over Rs 1 lakh crore in the products was a fair estimate.

Source:- http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/cnbc-tv18-comments/sebi-bans-14-insurance-cosselling-ulips_451089.html