Bank of Baroda (BoB) is scouting for an investor in its credit card business even as it is considering a potential listing of its insurance joint venture in the next 18 to 24 months.

Managing director & CEO Sanjay Chadha told Reuters that the lender is looking to bring in an investor in its credit card business over the next 12 months.

The credit card business is currently housed under BoB Financial Solutions, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of BoB. While its core business is credit card issuance, it also provides support to the PSU lender by carrying out its merchant acquiring operations, debit card operations for its overseas territory apart from providing consultancy services. During the year ended March 31, 2020, it had suffered a net loss of Rs 31.52 crore. It has more than half a million customers.

Chadha further said BoB is also looking to list its insurance joint venture — IndiaFirst Life Insurance Company — in the next 18-24 months. Here the Reuters report quoting the BoB CEO said the business has been doing very well and it has significant value.

While BoB has a stake of 44 per cent in the venture, the rest is held by Union Bank of India at 30 per cent and Carmel Point Investment at 26 per cent.

The insurer began its operations in 2009 and it ended the previous fiscal with Rs 3,360 crore of total premium collected and an assets under management of Rs 14,723 crore.

Shares of BoB closed marginally lower at Rs 80 on the BSE on Wednesday.

During the third quarter ended December 31, 2020, BoB had reported a consolidated net profit of Rs 1,159.17 crore as compared to a net loss of R 1,218.87 crore for the same period a year ago. During the quarter, total income of the bank fell to Rs 22,070.52 crore from Rs 23,134.67 crore in the year-ago quarter.

However, its asset quality saw an improvement with gross non-performing assets (NPAs) falling to 8.48 per cent of the gross advances by December-end 2020 from 10.43 per cent by the same period a year ago. In absolute terms, gross NPAs or bad loans fell to Rs 63,181.55 crore as against Rs 73,139.70 crore. Net NPAs also declined to 2.39 per cent or Rs 16,667.71 crore from 4.05 per cent or Rs 26,504 crore.