Standard Chartered Bank (Thai) is aiming for its newly launched life insurance product, PRUPremier Link, to contribute one-third of its bancassurance business revenue next year.
The new product is also expected to help the bank to hit double-digit growth in bancassurance premiums this year.
The bank's bancassurance channel generates life insurance premiums of over 1 billion baht a year, with first-year premiums accounting for more than 50%.
StanChart has teamed up with Prudential Life Assurance (Thailand) and seven non-life insurers for the bancassurance partnership.
"The product is very popular in many countries such as India. Its popularity can be spotted in all income segments, spanning low, middle and high income, with different life stages," the bank's executive vice-president Sachin Bhambani said.
The high flexibility of the tailor-made life insurance policy has been key to its popularity, he said.
The unit-linked insurance product boasts features of life protection and investment gains.
PRUPremier Link policyholders can design their investment portfolio themselves, adjusting life protection and switching mutual funds among 160 offered mutual funds without incurring additional switching fees. They are also get back 10% of the yearly premium in the fifth year.
Policyholders are eligible to choose 14 mutual funds for their investment portfolio to match their investment objectives and risk appetite, and the 160 available mutual funds have returns 1-3% above the benchmark.
Thailand is the fourth Asean country after Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia in which PRUPremier Link has been launched.
Given that the policy's annual premium is 120,000 baht, the bank's priority or wealth management customers are its target in the initial stage. Its customer target will be expanded to other segments in the next six to 12 months.
Meanwhile, the bank's senior executive vice-president Auraratana Jutimittla said there is plenty of room for growth for the bank's bancassurance products as only 30-40% of its wealth management customers have put part of their money into life insurance products.
The bank has more than 10,000 priority customers whose assets under management exceed 3 million baht.