United States firm MetLife will hike stake in insurance joint endeavor with Punjab National BankUS insurer MetLife Inc stated on Monday it would increase the stake in its Indian joint endeavor, availing of the increased limitation for foreign companies' financial investment into the nation's insurance market revealed previously this year.MetLife stated it had entered into an arrangement with IGE India and Elpro International to acquire their combined stake of 15.27 per cent in PNB MetLife India Insurance provider Limited.The deal will boost MetLife's stake in PNB MetLife to more than 47 percent.

Foreign institutional investors are now enabled to hold up to 74 percent of personal insurer in India compared with the earlier limit of 49 per cent.The unwinded limitation, which was revealed by Financing Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her spending plan speech for 2021-22, is expected to bring in inflows from US and European insurers.PNB MetLife is a leading life insurance franchise in India with more than 200 million consumers throughout 15,000 sales places.