Paternoster's likely to kickstart its India operations from April

Mumbai, Feb 13 (UNI) The full-fledged India operations of the UK insurance major, Paternoster, is all set to kickstart from April, this year.

Talking to UNI on the sidelines of Global Actuarials Conference, here today, the CEO of Paternoster India, V Balamurugan, said ''The finance, mortality and valuation team that comprise the 50-odd staff that were recruited late last year in India for our back-office operations in India are likely to finish their training in the UK by March-end.'' The remaining staff, that are undergoing training for pricing job in the UK, will come back to India a few months later. However, we are gearing up to make our office, located at Hiranandani Complex in Mumbai, fully operational by early April this year, he added.

Paternoster, which is No 2 insurance firm in the UK, will use its India office only for supporting its activities in the UK.

Talking about the India investment plans of his company, the Paternoster mortality expert, Richard Willets, said ''We're investing a sum of two million USD here which is equally divided for the development of office and the training of its staff.'' Asked to comment on the Centre's plan to increase the existing five per cent FII cap in the country's insurance sector to 10 per cent and to raise the FDI limit in the sector upto 49 per cent, Balamurugan said ''Any move to allow more foreign fund in the ever growing insurance sector of India is welcome.'' UNI