Bank Danamon and Manulife unite for bancassurance

The tie-up to targets Indonesia’s growing middle class.

Bank Danamon Indonesia is betting that its partnership with Canadian financial services company Manulife will boost its bancassurance business by about a third in the next five years.

Bancassurance describes a type of relationship between a bank and an insurance company in which the latter sells insurance products through the bank’s sales channels, including bank branches. 

In the partnership, Manulife would sell services to five million customers of Bank Danamon, which in turn would gain experience in creating insurance and investment products. 

The partnership will start in July to give both companies time to train certified staff for insurance sales, as required by the central bank. Bank Danamon, a Jakarta-based lender partly controlled by Singapore’s Temasek Holdings, has more than 500 branches in the country. 

Bank Danamon’s bancassurance business may contribute about 15 percent to its fee-based income in 2012, said Michellina Triwardhany, the company’s director of consumer banking. 

View the full story in The Jakarta Globe.