Key achievements in 2006

For the convenience of our customers, we increased our number of branches from 41 in December 2005 to 111 in 2006. We also increased our bancassurance partnerships from 16 in December 2005 to 29 in 2006 as we realised that our products reach a customer base of 43.5 million through our bancassurance partnerships.

We created an online financial health tool which provides customers with a complete picture of their financial health by taking into account income, expenditure, assets, liabilities and current planning for the future.

We commissioned an independent market research agency to conduct a customer satisfaction and loyalty survey. The findings of the survey helped us to identify areas which need improvement in order to maintain our current customer base and attract new customers from the market.

We established partnerships with leading development finance institutions across the country to provide micro-financial services to the underprivileged sections of Indian society. In 2006 we developed life assurance, protection, credit and savings plans to meet the needs of India’s poorest rural communities and to date we have covered 650,000 lives.

We launched two water conservation projects as part of our environment programme.

We also recycled 880 kilograms of paper 660 printer cartridges from the corporate office.

We have more than 330 children attending classes at our ongoing community project with Arpana Trust, which provides an informal education to underprivileged children aged 3-5 years old.

As part of the group’s tsunami rehabilitation project in Kanya Kumari, we have built three schools which provide primary education to 1,215 children and are currently repairing two more schools. We have also distributed 47 fishing boats, which are helping 235 families make a living.

In order to institutionalise the importance of diversity in our organisation, we used a globally accepted psychometric tool to make employees aware of the strengths and weaknesses of their operation team members by mapping their behavioural profile. This demonstrated the different skills each member brought to the team and emphasised the importance of having a diverse workforce.

Further information on the above achievements and additional examples of our progress across all areas of the CSR programme can be found in the attached PDF.