Financial Services Association, May 22 (Reporter Xia Shuyuan) On May 22, ICBC Life Insurance issued an announcement stating that from May 13, 2024, Wang Dufu will serve as the company's chairman and executive director.

According to reports, Wang Dufu has worked in the ICBC system for more than 30 years. However, becoming the chairman of ICBC AXA Life Insurance, he also has to face quite a few problems.

In the first quarter of this year, ICBC AXA Life's total premium income increased 20% year over year, but net profit fell 90% year over year. It is worth noting that since August 2023, the regulatory authorities have required banking insurance channels to strictly implement “integration of reporting and banking”. As a bank insurer, how ICBC AXA Life has transformed has attracted market attention.

According to Wang Dufu, in recent years, the debt side of the life insurance industry has grown dramatically at the cost of hidden payments and cost increases, making the asset side have to increase the allocation of high-risk equity assets, which poses a huge risk of interest spreads and losses in an environment of declining interest rates and market fluctuations.

At the same time, homogenized competition in the industry is serious, and cost management is extensive, causing the risk of cost differences and losses. The supervisory authorities have successively introduced a series of strict regulatory policies, including the “integration of reporting and banking” policy, which will not only guide the industry to reduce costs and increase efficiency, prevent and mitigate risks, but will also reshape the industry's business logic and development path. “Although the industry is actively transforming, it will still take time to resolve stock risks and cultivate new business models, and the industry still needs to accelerate exploration of effective paths of transformation and development. ICBC AXA Life will explore banking insurance transformation plans through the implementation of the Group's integration projects and financial responsibility coordination projects.” Wang Dufu said.

The new head of ICBC AXA Life Insurance took office, and Wang Dufu became the chairman

Since Ma Jian's resignation in December 2022, ICBC AXA's position as chairman has been vacant.

Now, after a year and a half when the head was vacant, ICBC AXA Life has finally welcomed a new successor. On May 22, ICBC AXA Life issued an announcement. According to the resolution of the 43rd meeting of the company's shareholders' meeting and approved by the State Financial Supervisory Administration, Wang Dufu will serve as the company's chairman and executive director from May 13, 2024.

According to public information, Wang Dufu was born in 1971, joined the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China in 1993, worked as the head secretary at the Zhejiang branch, and later worked as a director and deputy head of the office at the head office. Since 2011/7, he went to the Jiangsu branch and has served successively as the vice president of the Nanjing branch, the deputy secretary of the Party Committee, the deputy governor of the Jiangsu branch, and the party committee secretary and general manager of the sales department.

In 2016, Wang Dufu returned to the head office of the Industrial and Commercial Bank and successively served as Executive Vice President and President of Peony Card Center. In 2021, he became the Deputy Governor of the Beijing Branch of ICBC.

At the beginning of this year, Wang Dufu assumed the position of Party Secretary of ICBC AXA Life Insurance. People familiar with the matter explained that since arriving at ICBC AXA Life, Wang Dufu has actively promoted the company's accelerated integration into the ICBC system.

It is worth noting that in April of this year, Wu Qian, who has been the president of the company for 7 years, was reported to be the Secretary of the ICBC Financial Management Party Committee and Chairman. Industry insiders said that the candidate for the company's new president has now been decided.

Recently, the State Financial Supervisory Administration approved Zhang Tao's qualification as Deputy General Manager of ICBC AXA Life. At this point, in addition to the president, ICBC AXA Life's new senior management team has basically been put in place, including: Chairman Wang Dufu, Vice President Tao Zhongwei, Chief Investment Officer Guo Jinlu, Chief Actuator Yu Lingyan, Secretary of the Commission for Discipline Inspection Zhou Hong, and Deputy General Manager Zhang Tao.

ICBC AXA Life achieved net profit of 28 million yuan in the first quarter, a year-on-year decline of 90%

It has been nearly 25 years since ICBC AXA was founded. Formerly known as Jinsheng Life Insurance, it was initially held by foreign shareholders. In 2012, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China acquired a controlling interest after entering the company, and the company's business also changed from being dominated by foreign investors to being dominated by domestic investors.

Since ICBC became the controlling shareholder in 2012, the insurer turned a loss into a profit the following year, then rose steadily over the next few years, but experienced its first loss in 10 years in 2022.

Data show that from 2019 to 2023, ICBC AXA Life achieved insurance business revenue of 54.21 billion yuan, 46.963 billion yuan, 46.574 billion yuan, 49.122 billion yuan, and 40.495 billion yuan respectively, with net profit of 983 million yuan, 1,256 billion yuan, 1,692 billion yuan, -709 million yuan, and 445 million yuan respectively.

In the first quarter of 2024, ICBC AXA Life achieved total premium income of 19.622 billion yuan, an increase of 20% over the previous year, and instalment premiums of 4.779 billion yuan, an increase of 13% over the previous year. Furthermore, the value of the company's new business increased 22% year over year.

It is worth noting that the company's revenue growth did not increase profit. ICBC AXA achieved net profit of 28 million yuan in the first quarter, a year-on-year decrease of 90%.

How will personal insurance be strengthened in the future, and how will the scale and value of banking insurance channels be balanced?

Currently, the internal and external environment in which the life insurance industry operates has undergone major changes. In particular, since August 2023, the regulatory authorities have required banking insurance channels to strictly implement “integration of reporting and banking”, and the focus of channel competition may no longer be the level of fees.

As the parent company of ICBC AXA, ICBC AXA is undoubtedly ICBC AXA Life's biggest source of premium income, yet most of the premium income from the banking insurance channel comes from loss and profit, and the contribution to the company's profits is extremely low.

As a bank insurance company, how will ICBC AXA balance scale and value, and collaborate with banks on cooperation models and product guarantee plans?

In April of this year, Wang Dufu said in a public interview that ICBC AXA will collaborate with ICBC Group to explore banking insurance transformation plans by implementing the Group's integration engineering and asset management projects.

Among them, the Group is integrated into engineering, and the company will collaborate with ICBC Group to dig deeper into the Group's individual and corporate customers, embed the company's products into the parent bank's three major customer marketing service systems for individuals, institutions, and companies to enhance business coverage and product penetration rate.

In terms of capital and burden coordination, ICBC AXA Life will optimize the debt structure based on balance and liability management. The company will also cooperate with ICBC Group to explore the construction of pension communities and establish a non-financial value-added service system based on customer health care needs.

Furthermore, at the 2024 1st Individual Insurance Channel Top 50 Director Forum held recently, ICBC AXA Life proposed that it will guide long-term product sales by promoting value transformation and training health and pension product sales skills for all team members to help optimize the channel product structure and enhance channel value contributions.