The extension of the strategic bancassurance partnership between Prudential Vietnam and VIB will underscore their objective to bolster future confidence for Việt Nam’s bancassurance industry. — Photo courtesy of Prudential

HCM CITY — Prudential Vietnam and Vietnam International Bank have extended their exclusive bancassurance partnership until 2036, underscoring their objective to bolster confidence in and contribute to the healthy and sustainable development of bancassurance.

The partnership is an important milestone in their relationship, and helps set new standards for the bancassurance industry in Việt Nam with outstanding changes.

For the first time, the quality of consulting and insurance contract service is included in the bancassurance co-operation agreement by setting a minimum "persistency rate" and gradually increasing it to the ideal level.

For the first time, a “Joint Customer Conduct Committee" is established to help strengthen control over business activities, manage, monitor, and take timely action on issues of standards of conduct towards customers, the first bancassurance partnership to do so.

This is also the first bancassurance cooperation agreement that includes arrangement on the proportion of distribution of product portfolios and customers.

Commenting on this partnership, Phương Tiến Minh, CEO of Prudential Vietnam, said: “The life insurance market in Việt Nam is still young at less than 25 years and bancassurance channel has only recorded strong growth since 2016.

“This strong growth has allowed us to see the opportunities for improvement in product, service and sales quality.

“We are proud to have a partner with the same vision like VIB. The extension until 2036 is not only a testament of our excellent relationship, but also a pioneering movement in taking Việt Nam’s bancassurance industry to the next level, focusing on providing best solutions to the right customer segments to achieve sustainable growth for both parties.

“This new partnership extension is an important milestone in the strategic partnership for both sides with the expectation of setting new standards for bancassurance in Việt Nam.

“This movement is also our response to the Government’s direction, following the Ministry of Finance’s solutions for making prolonged and positive changes to the life insurance industry in general and the bancassurance industry in particular to contribute more to economic development and social security.”

CEO of VIB Hàn Ngọc Vũ said VIB has given top priority to offering comprehensive financial solutions to meet the increasing requirements of the Vietnamese people.

“Distributing Prudential insurance products through banks is one of the options that we offer to our customers. Prudential is a large international corporation with a world-leading reputation. It is also a model enterprise that has a strong commitment to the Vietnamese market.

“This company has good insurance products, transparent policies and processes and professional coordination mechanisms.

The strategic cooperation with Prudential has demonstrated the commitment of the two sides to the sustainable development of the insurance market and opening up opportunities for VIB to better serve customers, expand its retail business and affirm its goal of becoming a leading retail bank, he said.

The insurance industry has so far made positive contributions to the realisation of the country's socio-economic development goals.

As of April, it has ploughed back an estimated VNĐ708.4 trillion (US$30.17 billion) into the economy.

It is expected to achieve a scale of 3-3.3 per cent of GDP by 2025.

In 2022, life insurance companies settled claims of over VNĐ42 trillion ($1.79 billion), of which Prudential accounted for 25 per cent at nearly VNĐ9.6 trillion that it paid in more than 150,000 cases of death, total and permanent disability, critical illness, and medical care, 35 per cent higher than in 2021.

Through Prudential’s bancassurance channel alone, the number of claim settlements and the payouts increased by 64 per cent and 69 per cent, respectively, indicating that the protection needs of customers through banking is increasing every day.

In its bancassurance, VIB has focused on ensuring its consultants sustain a certain capacity and supervising the quality of their consultations through specific processes and regulations based on guaranteeing the general principles.

To promptly answer customers' inquiries and improve the quality of consultations, it also has extensive after-sales activities such as making random calls, updating financial milestones and others.

Since January 1 this year, the two companies have coordinated to make calls from the insurance switchboard to all new bancassurance customers to assess the quality of consultations, and reports have been made every month on the quality.

In future, they will also team up to accelerate staff training, coaching and supervision and communication activities so that the public will have more information about the characteristics of insurance products.

They will also continue to help customers solve problems to bring the best possible experience to them and constantly improve service quality. — VNS