From early September until now, the Vietnam’s life insurance market has continuously welcomed information on high-value bancassurance deals and mergers and acquisitions (M&A).
Recently, Reuters reported that many large insurance companies are competing with each other to acquire business units in Singapore and Vietnam of British insurance company Aviva. The deal could reach 2.5 billion US dollars.
In Vietnam, Aviva has started operating in the field of life insurance since 2011. It was formerly known as VietinBank Aviva a joint venture between Aviva and Commercial Joint Stock Bank for Industry and Trade of Vietnam (VietinBank). As of April 2017, Aviva completed acquiring 50 percent stake of VietinBank and officially wholly owned the unit. It signed an exclusive 18-year agreement to distribute life insurance products through VietinBank’s network. Thus, if the transfer is successful, VietinBank will have new partner.
Meanwhile, Commercial Joint Stock Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam (Vietcombank) is also likely to announce an insurance distribution agreement in the near future. Citing a familiar source, Bloomberg mentioned that FWD has surpassed many rivals, including Prudential to cooperate with Vietcombank. The bank will get an initial payment worth 400 million US dollars. Previously, Bloomberg estimated that the total agreed value may reach one billion US dollars the biggest bancassurance deal up to date.
In early September, two life insurance firms with large market share including Prudential and Manulife also officially announced their new banking partners.
On September 9th, Asia Commercial Joint Stock Bank (ACB) and Manulife held a signing ceremony of cooperation agreement on distribution of insurance products. Accordingly, in the first period of cooperation, ACB customers can participate in two key insurance products including Tuong Lai Thinh Vuong and Bao An Nhu Y.
Also on September 9tn, Prudential signed a cooperation deal with Shinhan Bank Vietnam to deploy bancassurance model. This insurance firm is also one of the pioneers of this model. The number of domestic and foreign partner banks of Prudential Vietnam has reached seven.
