Allianz PNB Life’s Chief Marketing Officer, Gino Riola, joined some of Asia’s top bank executives and finance industry experts as a keynote speaker and panelist at the Asian Banking and Finance (ABF) Summit 2022. The three-day event was held last June 15 to 17.
The ABF has facilitated several virtual conferences in the last two years, such as the 2020-2021 ABF Retail Banking Conferences and the FSI Conference. This year, the ABF Summit aimed to explore the digitalization of the financial services sector, and cover pressing topics such as fintech, data analytics, and issues that may arise due to this new and rising trend.
Riola, together with the Director of Simon Kucher & Partners Chetan Prakash and Chief Technical Officer of Sompo Holdings Asia Aditya Vardhan Tibrewala, took part in a panel discussion moderated by ABF Publisher Tim Charlton about digitalization in the insurance space. Riola pointed out the low insurance penetration rate in the Philippines and emphasized how utilizing data and technology helps Allianz PNB Life reach more prospects and develop products that its customer base needs.
“Digitalization for us is extremely important in terms of reaching out to customers and prospects. It provides an avenue for stimulating, productive conversations with the customer, fostering interactions with them that are both timely and relevant,” said Riola. “Here in the Philippines, insurance penetration rate is 2%. Because of the pandemic, digitalization ensures that we have more effective ways of reaching our customers.”
Riola further explained how Allianz PNB Life also ensures that its current customers have access to their policies.
“We work very closely with our Life Changers or financial insurance agents, because they enable more effective conversations with clients,” he stated. “We want insurance to be a product that people [are not] afraid of. Through our agents, our customers can have access to all the resources they need to make informed decisions regarding the security of their future.”
Riola also briefly introduced the Vivy app, an all-in-one hub for every customer’s protection and health needs. The app marks Allianz PNB Life’s latest venture into digitalization, allowing the company to bring relevant protection and health content to its users. The goal of the project is to help customers learn about their own health conditions as well as the important role insurance will play in securing their future.
“Technology is a means to an end, not the end itself,” Riola highlighted. “It is a means of getting faster to the consumer, [and] also helps in terms of better understanding the consumers and the policyholders that we already have. We can then improve our services and processes, but more importantly, [develop] new solutions that when we created the product we weren’t already thinking of.”