In 1998, realizing the growth potential of the Taiwan market, BNP Paribas Cardif established its fi rst Asian operation, Cardif Assurance Taiwan branch, in Taiwan and introduced innovative bancassurance models into a market that until then had distributed insurance products through traditional agents. Since then, BNP Paribas Cardif has continued to develop its operations with the help of Taiwan's strong ICT industry, and has established a comprehensive operations center in Taiwan from which to expand into Japan, Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, and the rest of the Asia Pacifi c market in the coming future.
Even in 2010 when the world was still recovering from the financial crisis, the French head office was still optimistic about Taiwan, and injected nearly NTD 2 billion into their Taiwan operations in order to increase their share of the Asia Pacific market and expand the scope of their insurance services.
Taiwan's Strong ICT Industry Helps Build an Asia Pacific Operations Center
BNP Paribas Cardif established Taiwan's first bancassurance insurance company, Cardif Taiwan, to market and distribute the insurance products through telemarketing sales and the bank staff , but not through existing traditional insurance agent. BNP Paribas Cardif, parent company of Cardif Taiwan, is an insurance unit of the BNP Paribas Group. BNP Paribas Cardif in 2010 alone was responsible for 25.3 billion Euros in insurance premium revenues, and has an operations network that covers 41 countries in Europe, Asia, and Latin America.
When BNP Paribas Cardif first decided to enter Asia, it was particularly impressed by the potential of the Taiwan market, and in 1998 Cardif Assurance Vie, was established in Taipei. Soon after in 2000, Cardif Assurance Risques Divers was established, and in 2010 BNP Paribas TCB Life was established as a joint venture with Taiwan Cooperative Bank (TCB). Next, attention turned to the backend managerial efficiency among BNP Paribas Cardif's various insurance operations. Cardif Assurance Vie Taiwan, General Manager, Ruth Wu, explained the reasons why BNP Paribas Cardif chose Taiwan: ""Because Cardif Assurance Vie Taiwan was already well established, and because of Taiwan's excellent ICT infrastructure and talent pool, BNP Paribas Cardif was able to create an Asia Pacific regional operations center here and start tapping the huge potential in the Asia Pacific market.""
Wu pointed out that the establishment of bancassurance services in Taiwan, and the IT systems that accompanied it, resulted in the creation of huge database systems that encompassed development and maintenance personnel, document creation and storage, and workflow creation, all of which are crucial to insurance operations. The establishment and mission of Paris Management Consultant Corp. Ltd. is to decrease itemized operational costs and maximize performance by sharing and integrating standardized workflows and optimized managerial models, establishing strict separation of databases, creating privacy and firewall settings, and working with customers on information security and personal data protection. In its early days, Paris Management Consultant Corp. Ltd. primarily served the Taiwan branches of Cardif Assurance Vie and Cardif Assurance Risques Divers, but it has expanded its service to include other Asia Pacific branches and subsidiaries of BNP Paribas Cardif.
Out with the Old, In with the New: Adopting a European Bancassurance Model
cassurance in Taiwan. General Manager, Ruth Wu emphasizes that industry experience and outstanding personnel are the keys to the company's success in creating innovative insurance services. When BNP Paribas Cardif first came to Taiwan, the local market was dominated by traditional agent-based sales, with only a few branch banks selling insurance products. Consequently, introducing a new European distribution and sales model was no easy task.
""In France, people were already used to buying insurance from banks. But in Taiwan, up until the time BNP Paribas Cardif came to the country in 1998, everyone was still directly contact insurance companies, which is to say the industry was still dominated by the agent-based sales model"", explains Ruth Wu.
In order to overcome this traditional sales model and introduce a drastically different way of buying insurance, BNP Paribas Cardif decided to work with local banks and make use of the existing sales channels within the financial services industry. In order to ensure that they could replicate the success of bank insurance in Europe, Cardif Taiwan maintains a 50-member insurance consultant team that is responsible for helping bank personnel to understand bancassurance and insurance product sales.
Wu says that ""Especially in traditional banks, there was no need for employees to actively introduce new products to customers; so from the very beginning we instituted a systematic training program that includes training on insurance principles, insurance industry knowledge, products and sales methods, so that bank personnel could better understand bancassurance. Very quickly Taiwan's existing approach to insurance began to change, as group after group of well-trained bank personnel began designing and marketing insurance products. This was the foundation of Cardif Taiwan's success, and these highly trained personnel also provided crucial support for the expansion into the China market.""
Performance, Products, Markets: Unqualified Success
LLess than five years after the establishment of the Taiwan branch, BNP Paribas Cardif had reached the break even point. By late 2008, on the eve of the global financial crisis, the Taiwan branch recorded a new annual high of 17.9 billion NTD in insurance premiums. Wu says, ""In 2009 bancassurance sales outstripped traditional agent-based sales for the first time; as of July of this year, new contract premium for bancassurance channels totaled 323.7 billion NTD, which is significantly higher than the 227.5 billion NTD sold by traditional agent channels. That's a market share lead of 56% to 40%, indicating that bancassurance is now the dominant model.""
After racking up 40 billion NTD in premiums in 2010, the first half of 2011 brought a global downturn in growth and many domestic industries were facing losses. But Cardif Taiwan maintained its stellar bank insurance channel performance in both its investment linked insurance and loan creditor insurance operations, with NTD 18.8 billion (44% market share) and NTD 720 million (26% market share) worth of new policies sold respectively. This represents increases over last year of 6% and 24% respectively, and places BNP Paribas Cardif atop the domestic industry in both categories.
In terms of product offerings, BNP Paribas Cardif has been able to use banking channels to create innovative products targeting customer needs. In addition to the well known mortgage creditor insurance, the company has also actively developed a dual axis product strategy. In the protection insurance sector, they have expanded protection services to include not only mortgage life products but products for SME loan customers, credit loan customers and other bank loan customers. While in the savings type insurance sector, BNP Paribas Cardif continues to expand its funding options for investment platforms, to provide more flexible investments that double as insurance protection.
Local Industry, Global Goals
At present, BNP Paribas Cardif's Japan, Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam operations in the Asia Pacifi c region are all enjoying outstanding success. In Japan, mortgage creditor insurance has performed surprisingly well in a sluggish economy; while the Taiwan market, where savings rates and personal wealth are both high, has become BNP Paribas Cardif's top source of insurance premium revenues in the Asia Pacific region. This is why the company decided to hold its 2011 Asia Seminar in Yilan, Tawian and to hold its ""Making the World Go Round with Love"" bicycle donation CSR activity at Lize Elementary School in Wujie Township, Yilan County. Throughout Taiwan, BNP Paribas Cardif is helping local farmers and taking active steps to support Taiwanese agricultural industry and fulfill its social responsibility. In academia, by Cardif Assurance Vie Taiwan, BNP Paribas Cardif has partnered with College of Commerce, National Chengchi University to create the Cardif Bancassurance Research Center, which will help nurture the bancassurance industry in Taiwan and train financial sector personnel. This industry-academic partnership has helped BNP Paribas Cardif carve out a niche for itself in Taiwan and helped shape its brand image, and is an example of how the company's continued hard work extends beyond the insurance industry to benefit Taiwan as a whole.
Source： Department of Investment Promotion, MOEA
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