VietinBank and Manulife Vietnam Limited signed an agreement to establish an exclusive 16-year bancassurance partnership. — VNS Photo

HÀ NỘI — VietinBank and Manulife Vietnam Limited yesterday signed an agreement to establish an exclusive 16-year bancassurance partnership to better meet the growing financial and insurance needs of the Vietnamese people.

Manulife Vietnam will be the exclusive provider of bancassurance solutions to VietinBank customers in Việt Nam soon after regulatory approval is obtained. This partnership will help to grow and further protect the health and wealth of Vietnamese individuals, families and businesses by offering best-in-class insurance, wealth and retirement solutions. As part of the transaction, Manulife Financial Asia Limited will also acquire Aviva Vietnam Limited. The acquisition of Aviva Vietnam will be subject to regulatory approval. Manulife expects the partnership to be accretive to diluted core earnings per common share in 2022 and the impact on the LICAT ratio is expected to be less than one per cent.

Speaking at the signing ceremony, Lê Đức Thọ, Chairman of VietinBank, said: “VietinBank and Manulife Vietnam have strengths and ambitions that complement each other – in particular, our strong shared focus on providing customer-centric financial products, services and solutions to Vietnamese individuals, families and businesses. The signing of the agreement is an important milestone that marks our co-operation with Manulife Vietnam.”

Roy Gori, Manulife President and CEO, said: “We are extremely pleased to enter into a partnership with VietinBank, Việt Nam’s leading bank. We share an ambition to accelerate digital transformation to make lives better for millions of people across Việt Nam. This partnership increases our market share leadership in Việt Nam and capitalises on our strong position as one of the leading international life insurers in Asia, further progressing our growth trajectory in the region.”

Anil Wadhwani, Manulife Asia’s President and CEO said: “We are very excited to expand our ability to support improved health and retirement outcomes for a rising, more digitally enabled population in Việt Nam through this partnership. Việt Nam is one of the region’s greatest economic success stories.”

Manulife Vietnam will work closely with VietinBank to design and offer a full suite of insurance, wealth and retirement products that serve the needs of all key customer groups in Việt Nam. These products will be distributed through a professional and well-trained sales force supported by the latest digital tools and processes.

Manulife Vietnam is currently Việt Nam’s number one life insurer by 2019 annual premium equivalent (APE) sales. Having entered Việt Nam in 1999 as the first foreign-owned insurer to be granted a license, it now has around 1,000 permanent staff and over 50,000 contracted agents, serving more than one million customers.

VietinBank is one of Việt Nam’s largest financial institutions, serving more than 14 million customers through a network of over 150 branches and 1,000 transaction offices across 63 cities and provinces in the country. In the first half of 2020, VietinBank was ranked number one in terms of bancassurance sales among state-owned banks in Việt Nam. — VNS