Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) of India has decided to jump in the emerging credit card business now. For that purpose, LIC has appointed Hemant Bhargava as CEO for LIC Credit Cards. The new venture will possibly start operations in the coming three to four months.

As per the RBI regulations LIC cannot conduct the business through any internal department. Earlier, the RBI had issued a guideline to LIC to open a new registered entity before entering the credit card business.

The LIC will enter into credit card business jointly with any other firm. However, it has not yet finalized about the partner in the credit card venture.

Hemant Bhargava said that the LIC would shortly decide all the details of the new firm. LIC had taken the services of the consulting firm KPMG for initiating the business plan for the new venture.

The report says that several banks such as Citibank, Standard Chartered, HSBC, Barclays, ICICI Bank, Centurion Bank and UTI Bank have showed their interest to be associated with LIC in this business plan.

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