Bank Partner of the Year 2018: Citibank, Hong Kong

| 08 Jun 2018

For its collaborative efforts and relentless focus on continuous improvement at all levels of its bancassurance partnership with AIA, Citibank has won Bank Partner of the Year at the 3rd Asia Trusted Life Agents & Advisers Awards.

The AIA-Citi partnership was signed as an exclusive distribution agreement for a 15-year period from 2014 to 2029. The two firms have a shared vision of becoming the best bancassurance player in Hong Kong, recognised for its excellence in serving customers’ insurance needs across the region, with the best people and platform in the industry.

The partnership stands out in several ways, including the provision of total wealth management solutions to customers through a multidimensional approach to bancassurance. Both firms are devoted to embedding insurance solutions across all AIA-Citi wealth management platforms to serve its customers’ needs, making its life insurance partnership an integral proposition in the banking environment.

The partnership also drives a holistic cultural evolution for positive, long-term change through innovative coaching strategies for all job functions in the bank. This ensures that the sales mind-set is focused on looking after customers’ needs by providing solutions that meet the needs and the budget of customers.

AIA-Citi have jointly developed unique and specific programmes that leverage expertise from both sides of the partnership. Other than in-depth sales training, AIA insurance best practices have been included in Citi’s market-leading total wealth management (TWM) advisory model, which has strengthened banking staff insurance planning capabilities and driven considerable results over the year.

See:

Lifetime Achievement Award 2018: Antonia Lucrecia Nicdao

Digital Agent of the Year 2018: Tay Kah Lok

TWM was launched in March 2017 with quarterly themes and sales ideas provided to relationship managers (RM) for cross-selling insurance to Citigold clients. TWM has seen the active investment and insurance client base grown by 34% in 2017.

The partnership employs a three-pronged focus (shareholders, customers and people) on delivering exceptional results across the board to outperform competitors in 2017, with a focus on long-term development and sustainability.

Best value was achieved for both companies’ shareholders by achieving consistent business growth since partnership, with impressive y-o-y growth. AIA-Citi has recorded an 84% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) since 2014. Thanks to the strength of the partnership, AIA-Citi HK is the best performing bancassurance player with highest growth by annual net premium (ANP) in the market.

The new initiatives introduced have delivered a more positive customer experience. Initiatives include a standardised ‘Relationship Manager Total Wealth KYC’ with four questions as part of total wealth advisory to facilitate needs-based conversation instead of product-selling.

The partnership’s holistic cultural evolution has also led to vastly improved performance across both partners. In addition, according to the 2017 AIA Employee Engagement Survey result, AIA-Citi partnership team’s score has improved from 4.23 points to 4.91 out of 5.

The 3rd Asia Trusted Life Agents & Advisers Awards was made possible by organisers Asia Insurance Review and Asia Advisers Network, co-organiser LIMRA, and strategic partner AIA. Winners were selected in an independently-audited judging process. More information on the Awards can be found here.

Download:

3rd Asia Trusted Life Agents & Advisers Winners’ booklet

Photos of the Gala Dinner