Ecobank Group’s commercial banking business has entered into a strategic business partnership with five Nigerian insurance firms to offer a range of bancassurance solutions to the bank’s small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) customers across regions or areas where Ecobank operates. The companies include Old Mutual Assurance, Allianz, Sunu Assurance, Sanlam and NSIA Insurance.
There has been a rising demand for bancassurance services from SMEs across markets as businesses seek to shake off the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic by looking for solutions to pad themselves from similar occurrences in the future.
Before the emergence of the coronavirus pandemic, Africa’s insurance market was projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of seven percent yearly, between 2020 and 2025. This figure is nearly twice as fast as North America, over three times that of Europe, and better than Asia’s six percent.
Thus, industry sources and reports have put it that Africa’s insurance market is valued at about $68 billion in terms of the gross premium written (GPW) and this makes Africa the second-fastest-growing region for insurance across the globe, after Latin America.
According to Ecobank, the strategic partnership will see customers of the small and medium-sized businesses benefit from the convenience of being able to access relevant solutions for all their insurance needs.
Josephine Anan-Ankomah, the group executive, commercial banking at Ecobank, said: “Adding a comprehensive suite of bancassurance solutions, in partnership with some of the most reputable insurance service providers across Africa, makes us a one-stop financial services hub. Furthermore, the resilience of SME businesses is enhanced through the effective risk transfer that bancassurance provides, while our solutions also offer our valued customers the satisfaction of knowing that they will have some protection, having learnt from the painful experiences of COVID-19.”
The bank further noted that the range of insurance products to be rolled out in the offering include commercial asset insurance, engineering insurance, marine & cargo insurance, key man insurance, motor fleet business travel insurance, which are in addition to bespoke offerings such as credit insurance-leasing, credit insurance-invoice discounting without recourse, and agricultural area yield insurance.
To begin with the rollout, the bank also revealed that it will come in two phases with Nigeria, Kenya, Benin, Burkina Faso, Congo Brazzaville, Cote d’Ivoire, Gabon, Guinea Bissau, Mali, Tanzania, Togo, and Uganda all experiencing the first phase of the initiative while the group’s 21 other affiliates will come on board in the second phase.
