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BANCASSURANCE

 Why is bancassurance picking up steam?

Bancassurance is a win-win strategy for 

customers, banks and insurance companies.

Banks benefit from increased fee incomes

by selling insurance products, insurance

companies leverage the wide reach of 

banks’ branch networks and customers

get composite financial management by 

obtaining a sensible allocation towards

insurance vis-à-vis other asset classes being

managed by a single advisory team. Some

banks in the region are more progressive

in their outlook and look at bancassurance

as a vital piece in the wealth management

strategy for their customers, rather than

 just a fee earner for the bank.

 Are there any banks in the region

that are positioning bancassurance

as part of Wealth Management?

 Yes, we have been seeing a consistent

upward trend in the Middle East & APAC.

In the region, Emirates NBD Bank, an Agilis

Bancassurance software customer, has been

a pioneer in both offering bancassurance

as an intrinsic part of their Wealth

Management Services as well as investing

into technology to bolster the practice.

Talking of Agilis bancassurance

software, how does it help banks

and insurance companies?

 Agilis Bancassurance solution is a very 

niche software product that completely 

 You mentioned bancassurance as

part of Wealth Management, how

do they fit together?

Let’s talk about an even larger context

of investment management. With Agilis,

we like to take a holistic view of the

superset of Investment Management and

hence the creation of Agilis Investment

Management Suite (IMS) that has

since won many awards and accolades

including the “Best Asset Management

Software in the Middle East”. The

universe of Investment Management

has interlinked domains of capital

markets, financial planning, wealth,

funds and annuities. There are myriad

asset classes and structured products

that both overlap and underlie whilst

criss-crossing evolving counter parties.

 Agilis IMS effortlessly caters to all these

aspects and nuances of the ecosystem.

Traditionally financial institutions

have been forced to deploy a plethora

of disparate software solutions and

interface with third party components

to get at best a disconcerting view.

 Agilis IMS provides an integrated view

of various moving parts, a harmonised

 visual field and intuitive analytics

enabling investment managers to

proactively simulate expected results

before taking any investment decision.

Often institutions using our systems

have found the whole is literally greater 

than the sum of its parts.

automates the entire workflow of 

bancassurance from Origination (product

advisory to customers), Policy Issuance,

Servicing (renewals, top ups, claims

management), to back office. What is

challenging in this practice is that it involves

multiple and distinct financial institutions

(eg. a bank with multiple insurance

carriers or an insurance company with

multiple banks) that need to collaborate,

exchange data and reconcile to present a

single window of service to the customer 

and Agilis Bancassurance seamlessly 

weaves the complex engagements into a

unified platform.

WEALTH MANAGEMENT

On the Wealth Management side,

do you find any difference in the

approach in various geographies?

The objective of investment management

remains the same universally however the

approach can differ due to both cultural as

well as regulatory directives. Agilis Wealth

Management with its configuration and

parameterisation engines can cater to any 

environment and this specially benefits

those institutions that are present in

multiple regions. The modular structure

of the solution enables customers to

select the modules they need. In the

Middle East for instance, we find a higher 

demand for Agilis Family Office, Agilis

Real Estate and Agilis Shari’ah-compliant

Portfolio Management.

The holistic view

www.cpifinancial.net 59

BME  spoke to Shefali Khera, Business Head,Agile Financial Technologies at TFS, USA aboutthe company’s winning service offerings

Shefali Khera, Business Head, AgileFinancial Technologies at TFS