The committee on Bancassurance, made by Insurance Regulatory & Development Authority (IRDA), feels that banks may be permitted to tie up with more than one insurance firm in the general and life insurance sector with a set of rigorous checks and balances.

Bancassurance relates to banks marketing insurance policies.

Currently, a bank can tie up with only one life insurance firm and a general insurance firm for marketing covers. The committee was organized by IRDA to restructure the surviving regulative architecture on bancassurance intermediation model and the possibility of plucking the current set of guidelines.

With a fixed number of insurance firms in functioning, it was getting difficult for banks to find bancassurance collaborators under the current rules for bancassurance tie-up.

Many requests have been welcomed by the IRDA from several general and life insurance companies as well as the Indian Bank's Association (IBA) to relax the norm that banks cannot tie up with more than one general and one life insurance firm.

The committee was organized to analyze the requirement for a differential discourse of insurance intermediation by banks under the model of bancassurance which will be in line with international exercises. It will also analyze the scope, content and aim of a different set of rules for bancassurance.