KUALA LUMPUR: OCBC Bank (M) Bhd is upbeat that its partnership with Great Eastern Assurance (M) Bhd will further beef up its bancassurance business, which has been recording double-digit growth in sales.
Director and chief executive officer Jeffrey Chew said the bank could “easily double” the bancassurance business within 12 months of the tie-up and achieve double-digit growth thereafter.
“I don’t think it is difficult to achieve because our base is small. We have been posting double-digit growth annually for the past few years,” he told a press conference after the launch of the OCBC-Great Eastern Bancassurance partnership yesterday.
Head of consumer financial services Charles Sik said the bank started its bancassurrance business in 2003 but had yet to report “significant numbers”.
Jeffrey Chew (second from left) shaking hands with Koh Yaw Hui at the launch of the OCBC-Great Eastern Bancassurance partnership yesterday. On the left is Charles Sik“We hope to be a leading player with 10% to 15% share in the bancassurance market in the long term,” he added. However, he did not disclose the current value of its bancassurance business.
OCBC will market two Great Eastern bancassurance products, MaxMoney Plus and MaxMoney Back. Under the partnership, Great Eastern would provide the insurance products while OCBC markets and distributes the corresponding bancassurance offerings.
Great Eastern director and chief executive officer Koh Yaw Hui is confident the new products would be well received.
He expects MaxMoney Plus and MaxMoney Back to bring in RM12mil and RM6mil respectively in new business premiums by year’s end.
“We created differentiation in our products. Our agent force and bancassurance will not be competing but complementing each other,” he said.
On the duration of the partnership, Koh said: “We’ve just got married today! We’ll like to stick to this partnership and stay loyal to our partner.”
The market was huge as Malaysians were under-insured, he said, adding however that finding a good business partner was difficult.
Koh said the group was on track to achieve RM800mil in total weighted new business premiums this year.
“In the first quarter, our business grew 60%. We expect more than 50% growth in the second quarter,” he added.
In conjunction with the OCBC-Great Eastern Bancassurance partnership, RM10 per new policy will be donated to charity during the first three months.
The money will be channelled to ChildrenCare, a special charity project of Great Eastern.
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