On November 23, Industrial Bank (IB) held the 2023 Insurance Summit and Honor Ceremony and the 2024 Bank-Insurance Cooperation Kick-off Meeting in Beijing. The meeting summarized the bank’s gratifying achievements in bank-insurance cooperation over the year and outlined the work plan for 2024. Chen Xinjian, President of IB, and Vice President Zhang Min attended and addressed the meeting, which was also attended by leaders from 26 partnering insurance institutions. Together, they discussed plans for a new blueprint for bank-insurance cooperation in 2024.
In his speech, President Chen Xinjian highlighted IB’s distinctive business characteristics, consistently polishing its “Three Pillars” of Green Banking, Wealth Bank, and Investment Bank. In the Wealth Bank sector, as of now, IB’s retail AUM has exceeded 3 trillion yuan, with retail customers surpassing 100 million, leading the national commercial banks in comprehensive wealth management capabilities for 23 consecutive quarters.
President Chen noted that insurance agency business is an essential part of Wealth Bank. Since initiating insurance agency services in 2014, IB has established effective cooperation with various insurance institutions in joint sales, investment banking, custody, payroll, and settlement services, achieving mutual benefits.
Looking to the future, President Chen expressed optimism about the immense potential of China’s insurance industry. The Central Financial Work Conference’s emphasis on building a financial power and enhancing “the Five Major Areas” including technology finance, green finance, inclusive finance, pension finance, and digital finance outlines a clear direction for the future development and improvement of banking and insurance industries. IB is eager to collaborate with insurance institutions in customer expansion, ecosystem building, and value sharing. This collaboration aims to create new dimensions in bank-insurance cooperation, provide value creation and risk protection for the general public, and contribute to building a strong financial nation and advancing China’s modernization.
In terms of customer expansion, the bank-insurance partnership should extend its services from the initially concentrated middle and high-net-worth customers to middle-income and salaried families. By classifying customers, the goal is to diversify products and meet the varied needs of different customer groups, offering comprehensive wealth management services to a broader clientele and fully leveraging the economic shock absorber and social stabilizer roles of the insurance industry.
Regarding ecosystem building, IB will utilize its strengths and collaborate with insurance companies to build an ecosystem for the “Five Major Areas” of bank-insurance cooperation. This includes enriching the green insurance service system, leveraging inclusive life insurance for public welfare, supporting diverse pension needs with insurance services, and enhancing the digital and intelligent service levels of insurance.
In terms of value sharing, to achieve breakthroughs and transformation in bank-insurance cooperation under new conditions, it’s essential to enter a new phase of value enhancement and sharing. Both parties should explore cooperative spaces in data, channel, and financial value, deepen collaboration in products, teams, and systems, and jointly build a bank-insurance ecosystem, striving for mutual success in banking and insurance.
Vice President Zhang Min stated that 2024 is a year of comprehensive enhancement for IB’s wealth management. Intensifying the sales of insurance products is a key strategy for this improvement. He anticipates stronger cooperation between banking and insurance on both the funds and assets sides. By integrating “products + services,” “investment + protection,” “channels + scenarios,” “network + ecology,” and “virtual + physical entities” dimensions, the aim is to fully utilize technology to foster cooperation, forming a more cohesive service community and providing a strong impetus for high-quality development in bank-insurance collaboration.
At the conference, IB representatives summarized this year’s bank-insurance collaboration achievements and outlined future partnership plans and business strategies. Additionally, the bank awarded the top-performing insurance companies and bank branches in insurance sales for 2023.
Bank-insurance business is a vital component of wealth management, and IB has been continuously optimizing its collaboration mechanisms with insurance companies. Focused on upgrading product structures and integrated operations, IB strives to provide customers with more robust and comprehensive asset allocation services, solidifying and exploring new avenues in bank-insurance cooperation. As of October 2023, IB has collaborated with 35 insurance companies, accounting for 45.5% of the total life insurance companies in the market. This year, the bank has sold insurance products amounting to 15.02 billion yuan, including 8.159 billion yuan in term products and 6.843 billion yuan in lump-sum products, serving over 680,000 insurance customers.
Main department heads from IB’s head office and responsible persons from various branches participated in the meeting.