Life insurance provider Sun Life of Canada (Philippines), Inc. and Voyager Innovations, the digital innovations arm of PLDT and its mobile provider Smart Communications, Inc., have entered into a strategic partnership for the development of financial technology or “fintech” services for emerging markets, starting with the Philippines.
SunLife and Voyager Innovations announce collaboration for fintech at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Greg Martin, Senior Advisor atSunLife (second from left) with Orlando B. Vea, President and CEO of Voyager Innovations (third from right). With them are: Mike Manuel, Chief Business Development Officer at SunLife (leftmost), Lito Villanueva, Lito Villanueva, managing director for fintech, digital inclusion and alliances at Voyager Innovations (second from right), and Benjie S. Fernandez, Chief Operating Officer at Voyager Innovations.
The collaboration focuses on the intersections of digital and mobile technologies with insurance services. The partners are also looking at leveraging Voyager Innovations’ various digital platforms for combined synergies in the intersecting technology and financial services arenas.
Commenting on the strategic partnership, Sun Life Philippines President & Chief Executive Officer Rizalina Mantaring said, “We are set on redefining the insurance industry in this age of digital and we see this partnership with Voyager Innovations as a move towards being able to offer more innovative and financially inclusive insurance services through fintech.”
“We see the vast opportunities that the insurance business can give to our fintech initiatives, part of our mission of enabling more financial inclusion in the Philippines and beyond, through digital platforms,” added Orlando B. Vea, President and CEO of Voyager Innovations.
The partnership comes at an opportune time for the insurance industry in the Philippines. Life insurance penetration in the Philippines remains to be low. However, the Insurance Commission (IC) said that with more Filipinos buying insurance, it is possible that the industry will have 45% of the population covered by insurance by the end of 2016.
For the life insurance sector alone, IC data showed that premium income grew by 18.8 percent to P188.5 billion in 2015 from P158.7 Billion in 2014. In its landmark National Strategy for Financial Inclusion published in July 2015, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) sees insurance as an important financial product that provides financial risk protection for Filipinos.
“With booming economy, young demographics and rapidly accelerating mobile Internet penetration in emerging markets such as the Philippines, a low insurance penetration rate translates to a huge opportunity for us to be able to offer radically innovative fintech services across the market. This collaboration with Sun Life is a step towards that direction,” said Lito Villanueva, managing director for fintech, digital inclusion and alliances at Voyager Innovations.
