This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on June 6, 2016.

KUALA LUMPUR: CIMB Group Holdings Bhd and Sompo Japan Nipponkoa Holdings Inc last Friday announced a partnership that will see the bank distribute Sompo’s non-life insurance products through its branch network in four core markets, namely Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand.

In a statement, Sompo said its wholly-owned subsidiary Sompo Holdings (Asia) Pte Ltd had entered into a long-term non-life bancassurance distribution agreement with CIMB for Southeast Asia, subject to the execution of in-country deals.

Through this partnership, Sompo group chief executive officer Kengo Sakurada said the group will be able to distribute its non-life insurance products to over 12 million customers of CIMB across the bank’s extensive network of some 1,000 branches, as well as via its Internet and mobile banking platforms.

“We are mainly expanding our retail business in emerging countries, and currently operate in six countries through local subsidiaries and have representative offices in two countries in the Asean region. We have successfully achieved a 38% increase in our gross written premium during these two years, which was more than two times higher than the market growth during the comparable period,” he said.

“The Asean non-life insurance market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 7% over the next 10 years to reach a total market size of US$50 billion by 2025,” Sakurada added.

“Bancassurance is one of the key components of CIMB’s consumer and commercial proposition, in line with the group’s direction to grow these segments to achieve the goals of our Target 2018 strategy,” CIMB group chief executive officer Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz said in a separate statement.

“This partnership will reap benefits not only from CIMB Group’s core strength in distribution of bancassurance products, but also from Sompo’s capabilities in digital technology to drive growth in our bancassurance segment.

“Having a strong regional partner also facilitates synergies and operational efficiencies, enabling CIMB Group to deliver better value to our customers across Asean,” added Zafrul.