Cholamandalam DBS Finance Limited, has announced the launch of an online investment portal christened Choladbsdirect.com, aimed at retail investors and traders.

The company claims that the portal, www.choladbsdirect.com, is a financial gateway for first time as well as regular investors, helping them invest safely and securely across a wide variety of financial instruments online.

The portal will initially also host most of the in house research that has been until now available to High Net worth Individual (HNI) clients of the firm, the company added.

Apart from it, Cholamandalam DBS will also be looking at partnering with banks and other financial institutions to offer their customer base a range of white labeled retail products including personal loans and online broking through choladbsdirect.com

Cholamandalam DBS Finance (CHOLADBS), a joint venture between Rs.8500 crore Murugappa Group and DBS Bank Singapore, is a pan-Indian composite financial services provider. The company is one of India`s largest domestically owned NBFCs and caters to the needs of corporate and retail consumers through its retail and corporate finance wings.

The net profit of Cholamandalam DBS Finance declined 17.75% to Rs 12.74 crore in the quarter ended March 2008 as against Rs 15.49 crore during the previous quarter ended March 2007.

The board of directors of the company at its meeting held on April 25, has recommended to the shareholders a dividend of 40% (Rs 4 per share) on the equity shares.