Scale and Diversity

As part of a global wealth and banking institution, HSBC Life Singapore is poised to offer unique propositions to its customers, shares CEO Ho Lee Yen

Changes have been afoot at HSBC Life Singapore. In August last year, the financial institution announced a US$529 million deal to acquire AXA Singapore, another local insurance company, then appointed industry veteran Ho Lee Yen as its CEO less than a month later. Clearly, the business has ambitions to scale up and establish itself as one of Asia’s leading wealth managers. It’s a goal that Ho, who has more than 25 years of experience in the industry, shares keenly. In this exclusive interview, she offers insights on the business as well as Singapore’s wealth management landscape as a whole.

Are there unique advantages to having HSBC Life as an integrated part of HSBC?

As HSBC, we develop our own insurance products, sell them ourselves and also provide banking services, which give us many synergies. With our high‑net‑worth clients, for example, we can offer a one‑stop solution beginning with the appropriate insurance products, which we then support through premium financing services. For our corporate clients, the product mix changes—we provide business banking services that we supplement with employee benefits. These employees, in turn, can come to us to address their health and wealth gaps through personal insurance.

As Asians, we often find it difficult to discuss [intergenerational wealth transfer] with our families, so education is key

We can bring our various product lines together for our customers in a holistic way to meet all of their financial and protection needs.

What does HSBC’S AXA Singapore acquisition mean for the business?

This has allowed us to materially scale up and diversify our insurance and wealth business in Singapore, and significantly boost our ability to serve the protection needs of people. For example, we’ve widened our distribution reach. In the past, we were focused on bancassurance and brokerage services for affluent to high‑net‑worth individuals. With the acquisition, we’ve acquired more than 800 financial advisors and through them gained access to more mass affluent customers.

It’s important to note that this segment of existing customers won’t remain static. They may begin with just basic insurance products and retail banking services, but as they grow their wealth or businesses, they will require private and corporate banking services. We will, of course, accompany them on their wealth journeys.

What key trends will affect the business in the coming decade?

What’s interesting is that over the next 10 years, a projected US$1.9 trillion worth of intergenerational wealth transfer will take place in Asia. We see a huge opportunity, beginning with our role in starting the conversation. As Asians, we often find it difficult to discuss this with our families, so education is key. It’s about providing the right products, such as universal life insurance and trust services, to preserve our customers’ wealth and pass it on to the next generation. We also want to help our clients sustain this wealth through planning and the right products, as well as maintaining each generation’s relationship with HSBC.

How we conduct our business will also be very different. Like how banking services have evolved over the past decade, insurance services will become a lot less transactional. Instead, engagement will be crucial and it will be done via various channels to interact with our customers more regularly— including face‑to‑face meetings, as the human experience is important to understanding people’s needs.

What are HSBC’S views on sustainability?

The most common “definition” of sustainability with regard to ESG (environmental, social and governance) is something we believe in and support in various ways, such as how we evaluate the businesses we choose to invest in. We also see sustainability in health and wealth as important considerations.

When it comes to health, we don’t want to be approached only when something has gone wrong and insurance claims need to be made. We want to be a part of our customers’ wellness journey right from the beginning. I think this is especially important because Singaporeans are living longer but don’t necessarily have a good quality of life in their final years. To that end, we’re launching a programme very soon. Physical fitness, adequate rest and even nutrition are some areas we want to encourage our customers to pay attention to.

Sustainability in wealth, meanwhile, is about being able to maintain one’s lifestyle on a financial level—independently. I think having retirement planning gaps and relying on children to provide for you isn’t sustainable, especially with Singapore’s rising dependency ratio, so this is also something to address through insurance.

Of course, these issues are all related—you can’t have good financial planning but poor health, and expect a good quality of life. What’s important for us is being able to accompany our clients every step of the way.