According to the Financial Times, global banking giant HSBC is planning to invest $200 million into its reinsurance business, in a bid to boost profits from its insurance sector.
This move is part of the group’s current strategy to double the amount of profit from its insurance business to 20% in the medium term, the Financial Times revealed.
According to the news site, HSBC currently generates an estimated annual pre-tax profit of $2.2 billion. As part of its strategy to increase insurance product sales, the group transferred the head of its head of private banking arm, Clive Bannister, to become group managing director of insurance.
According to the Financial Times, Mr Bannister is seeking to expand the bank’s insurance revenues in emerging markets via an organic approach as opposed to acquisitions which, according to the group managing director, are hard to come by.
In the emerging markets, you have seen us do joint ventures in India and greenfield start-ups in Taiwan and initiatives in China with [insurance and financial services company] Ping An. It’s very hard to go and buy things in the emerging markets because there are not an awful lot of them, Mr Bannister said, as cited in the Financial Times.
In terms of acquisitions, of course the group thinks about these things if they are presented, and we run our slide rule on these things, but we have to bet the farm on an organic plan, not an acquisition plan, he added.