By Karl Angelo N. Vidal

ROBINSONS BANK Corp. signed a bancassurance partnership with British life insurer Pru Life UK yesterday in a bid to bolster its product offerings.

In the distribution agreement signing held yesterday in Quezon City, Robinsons Bank President and Chief Executive Officer Elfren Antonio S. Sarte said the three-year bancassurance partnership will generate approximately P40 million to P50 million in premiums in the first year.

“We have signed a three-year contract with Pru Life and we expect over the next three years to accelerate, but for the first year, we are expecting P40 [million] to P50 [million],” Mr. Sarte said.

He added that the lender wants to offer bancassurance products to “complete its product offering” in line with its “Roadmap 2020” strategy.

“We have a “Roadmap 2020, that is a five-year plan that we launched in 2015, and bancassurance is one of the major products that we really intended to offer so we can complete our product offering in the market for our customers,” Mr. Sarte said.

Lance Y. Gokongwei, chairman of JG Summit Holdings, Inc.’s banking arm, said they are confident about the partnership, given that Pru Life is “a very stable and well-established multinational company.”

Robinsons Bank will also take advantage of JG Summit’s retail segment to offer bancassurance products.

“In terms of size, we’re not very big, but if you factor in the [JG Summit] ecosystem that we have, there are opportunities for offering the product outside our branch network.”

Robinsons Bank ranked as the 19th biggest commercial bank in asset terms at end-September 2017 with P94.41 billion, data from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas showed.

Robinsons Bank also aims to open 19 new branches this year, which will add to its 134 existing branches.

Meanwhile,  Pru Life president and CEO Antonio Manuel G. De Rosas said the partnership will help the life insurer diversify its distribution channels.

“One of the objectives of partnering with a bank is to diversify [our] distribution, not only agency… You want other channels as well.”

Mr. De Rosas added that while traditional insurance products can now be sold in Robinsons Bank branches, they are still need regulatory approval from the Insurance Commission and the central bank for other offerings.

“We already have the regulatory approval to sell traditional [insurance products], but we are still working on the regulatory approval to sell investment-linked [products],” Mr. De Rosas said, adding that the processing time is still indefinite.

Prior to the bancassurance partnership, Pru Life only had broker partnerships with lenders such as HSBC Philippines and Standard Chartered Bank Philippines.

However, the British life insurer ended terms with the said lenders, as HSBC signed a distribution agreement with Allianz PNB (Philippine National Bank) Life Insurance, Inc. in July 2017, and as Standard Chartered transferred its retail banking operations in the Philippines to Gotianun-led East West Banking Corp. in November 2016.

In 2016, Pru Life, the local unit of UK’s Prudential Plc, ranked fifth in the list of the biggest life insurance companies in terms of premium income with P18.12 billion worth of total premiums.

Bigger banks have already partnered with insurers for bancassurance deals. These include the joint ventures of Bank of the Philippine Islands and Philippine American Life and General Insurance Co., PNB and Allianz, China Banking Corp. and Manulife Philippines, and Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. and Sun Life Financial Philippines.

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