Saturday, July 20, 2013

European retail banking groups take lion's share of global - The Nation

The total value of premiums written by captive and joint-venture underwriters belonging to the world's leading retail banking groups is likely to have exceeded US$330 billion (Bt10.3 trillion) in 2012, according to new research about global bancassurance strategies published by Finaccord, a consultancy that specialises in such studies.

Based on an investigation into the consumer banking operations of the world's top 125 retail banking groups across 64 countries, Finaccord's research established that 52 of these groups (41.6 per cent) own a captive underwriter (but no joint ventures) in at least one jurisdiction, 13 (10.4 per cent) own at least one JV underwriter (but no captives) and 17 (13.6 per cent) operate both captive and joint venture underwriters.

The most prominent bancassurer in terms of the breadth of its geographical presence is BNP Paribas, while by total value of premiums, Credit Agricole is the world's largest bancassurance group, reporting total business of $29 billion in 2012.

"When measured by the total value of premiums underwritten by captive and joint venture insurers, four of the 10 largest bancassurance groups in the world originate in France," said Tobias Schneider, a consultant at Finaccord.

"All but two of the others in the top 10 are European banking groups; the exceptions are Bradesco of Brazil, ranked fourth, which Finaccord understands to have one of the most profitable bancassurance units in the world, and South Korea's NongHyup Bank, ranked ninth, part of that country's National Agricultural Cooperative Federation."

Finaccord's research also investigated which of the world's top 125 retail banking groups have established partnerships with external insurance providers that can be considered to be strategic. Among those researched, 52 (41.6 per cent) have established a strategic partnership with an insurance provider, sometimes in the form of one or more joint ventures and sometimes in the form of a long-term distribution agreement not involving co-ownership.

Across the 125 groups, Aviva is the insurance provider with the most partnerships that can be classified as strategic (with six), followed by Allianz, Prudential and Zurich with four each, and by Ageas, AXA, CNP Assurances and MAPFRE with three each.

Divestments

A number of the banking groups researched, including HSBC, ING Group, RBS Group and Santander, have been divesting previously captive insurance operations either wholly or in part for regulatory or strategic reasons.

For example, as a condition of state financial support received by ING Group in previous years, the European Commission has demanded a number of changes to the group's structure. including separation of its banking and insurance operations and divestment of its international insurance business over the course of the next five years.

"Several banking groups had to be supported by public funds in the wake of the financial crisis and have been forced by regulators to sell their insurance units to compensate for the financial support received.," Schneider said.

"In addition, new regulations concerning capital requirements and liquidity risks as decided by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision in 2010 have led some banking groups to sell off insurance interests, in order to comply with the new rules.

"Naturally, these developments are among those that create significant strategic opportunities for insurance providers to enter into new long-term partnerships with banking groups."

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/business/European-retail-banking-groups-take-lions-share-of-30210832.html

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