To attend this 2024 interim result call of ZhongAn Online. I am the Director of the Investor Relations and Capital Market. My name is Lin Zhang. First of all, please allow me to introduce the management, the General Manager of ZhongAn and CEO Jiang Xing. Mr. Li Gaofeng, the Chief Investment Officer and Chief Financial Officer. The Vice General Manager and Secretary of the Board, Mr. Wang Min, and also Wayne Xu, the President of ZhongAn International of ZhongAn. Now please give the floor to Mr. Jiang Xing.
All right. Good afternoon, dear investors and analysts. I am Jiang Xing, the general manager of ZhongAn Online. I would like to welcome everybody to attend the 2024 interim result conference of ZhongAn Online. I'm appreciating your continuous attention and support to ZhongAn.
2024 is the beginning of the new decade of ZhongAn. In the recent release, 2024 Fortune China 500 list, ZhongAn ranking has improved by 37 places to 460, reflecting a summary and recognition of our achievements over the past decade. Facing the complicated macro external environment in recent years, we are here to a mission of empowering the finance business with technologies and providing insurance service with a caring hand, and embrace the value of the best performance of yesterday as a minimum requirement of today. We are focused on listening to our users' feedback, improving user experience, staying true to our original aspiration, and driving the long-term sustainable development of ZhongAn. In the first half of 2024, we achieved a total premium income of CNY 15.23 billion, a year-on-year increase of 5.4%.
In terms of the total premium return, we maintain a market share of over 20% in this internet P&C insurance sector, holding the first position. Under new accounting standard, our insurance service revenue in the first half of the year reached CNY 1.588 billion, a year-on-year increase of 19%. The combined ratio for underwriting was at 97.9%, maintaining a healthy underwriting profitability. Also with a commitment to the long term and proven operation. Our net assets have continued to grow and our solvency remain ample, with a comprehensive solvency adequacy ratio of 224% at the end of the first half of the year. We were also consistently received issue credit rating of Baa1 from Moody's and A- from AM Best.
As one of the strategic engines of ZhongAn, the Technology business has been benefited from the ongoing digital transformation in the domestic and global financial sectors. The first half of the year, our Technology export revenue increased by 65.5% year-on-year to CNY 4.24 billion, with the domestic Technology output revenue reaching CNY 319 million, a year-on-year growth rate of around 112.7%. This growth rate was primarily driven by the expansion of new clients in the financial, retail, and manufacturing sectors, in addition to consolidating our insurance industry client base. This has resulted in rapid growth, supporting the launch of multiple products under the ZhongAn business growth and infrastructure series. Due to the increase in the productized revenue and improvement in operational efficiency, the Technology segment reduced its loss by CNY 165 million in the first half of the year, comparing to the same period last year.
Now taking a look at the Hong Kong Digital Bank, ZA Bank performance, maintaining a very strong growth momentum this year. Achieving a net income of HK$255 million in the first half of the year with a yearly increase of 45.9%. The rapid growth in this particular income has led to the realization of scale effect, significantly improving the cost-to-income ratio. Also narrowed by HK$99.1 million in the first half of the year. We have realized that the overall profit attributable to the parent company of HK$55 million. This is the very critical year for our 14th Five-Year Plan and response to the guiding operation and promotion of high quality development of inclusive finance issued by the National Financial Regulatory Administration. We have remained committed to empowering with technology, providing innovative, inclusive, and diverse insurance products.
Fulfilling the insurance role as a buffer in the economy and stabilizer in the society. We are going to develop these small and diversified and convenient inclusive insurance products tailored to the internet scenarios, enhancing the convenience and accessibility of insurance services. The first half of the year, we provided health and accidental insurance coverage for over 1 million new citizens and flexible workers, including the food delivery riders and couriers and ride-hailing drivers. Also, we launched over 100 exclusive products covering more than 1 million individuals with chronic illnesses, and also standardized health conditions. We also develop insurance products for groups including women and elderlies, and creating a safety net for them.
Furthermore, addressing the pain points of domestic micro and small enterprises in this operation, we provided the multi-line insurance coverage, including property insurance and liability insurance, for over 1.33 million micro and small enterprises, helping to enhance their risk resilience. In the first half of 2024, in our proprietary operated channels, we have adjusted our marketing strategies, focusing on the user operation in the private domain and improving the user experience, laying a solid foundation for the long-term user value realization. Around the four ecosystems, we have also upgrade the services of health, family, and pets, continue to enrich our product matrix to provide the users and consumers with convenient, economical and comprehensive protection.
In the first half of the year, for all the proprietary channels, 40% of the premium was contributed by the old users from 2019 and even older, showing the company of ZhongAn to our users. In the first half of 2024, the average number of policies held per user reached 1.6 in our proprietary channel, and CNY 667 for the average premium per user. Leveraging our self-developed data platform and the customer middle platform, we have achieved a real-time data sharing across the entire ecosystem. We are servicing the whole life cycle of the users. In the first half of the year, the total premium provider channel was CNY 3.6 billion. With additional policies purchased and by contributing to 31% of the total premium, the renewal rate increased by 3.2 percentage points and reached 95% year-on-year. Next.
Just now, I have introduced the overall situation. Next I would like to talk to you about the progress of each business segment in the first half of the year. The first is the Health Ecosystem. In the first half of 2024, we have provided the health coverage to approximately 12.39 million insured, with the total premium or the portfolio reaching CNY 343 million. Also in terms of inclusive finance or healthcare, we have upgraded and iterated the upgraded version of a million healthcare coverage, this increased the accessibility of the insurance service and expanded the coverage to the pre-existing condition people, individuals with chronic illnesses and special occupational group. Also tapping into the market amount. Also to address the unmet needs or pain points, this inclusive products, including Zhongmin Bao, were covering over 100 exclusive products in the first half of the year.
We have the total premium growth rate exceeded 2.7 times. Our outpatient emergent insurance products extended the service scenarios from the inpatient care to outpatient care, meeting users' daily high frequency medical needs achieving rapid growth. This total premium increased a lot, the total premium reached CNY 427 million with a yearly increase of 321%. Apart from that, our short-term critical illness product became also the primary choice for ZhongAn users to enhance their coverage. This has achieved a very steady growth in the first half of the year with the total written premium of exceeding CNY 800 million. Also we are developing the medium to high-end medical insurance products. Also this year, we have been also trying to understand the pain points of many users.
Also we have also launched some of the other wide spectrum and wide range covered products, meeting the people's basic needs of outpatient and emergent visits. These products were welcomed by the public, we had a very impressive premium growth. Next, taking a look at the Digital Life Ecosystem. In the first half of 2024, the total premium reached CNY 7.4711 billion. In the first half of 2024, mainly benefiting from the sustained prosperity of the e-commerce industry the rapid growth of innovative products like the pet insurance, scenario-based accident insurance and household insurance, et cetera. In this e-commerce segment, we provided the users with the integrated solution covering the entire e-commerce transaction chain, including the return shipping insurance, quality assurance, account security, and logistics protection.
In the first half of 2024, our e-commerce business segment captured the opportunity presented by the overall prosperity of the e-commerce industry, maintaining a rapid written premium growth. In the travel and aviation business segment, we adopted a more differentiated strategy, strengthening the travel development and product R&D in response to the gradual recovery of location and outbound travel while improving the business quality. In terms of innovation business segment, the pet insurance achieved over 2.8 times premium growth, with in total 1.46 million new pet owner users in the first half of the year. Based on extensive claims data analysis, we updated and iterated the original 107 covered diseases in our pet major illness insurance product, covering more common diseases among pets, enhancing the product competitiveness, releasing the product value.
As of June 30, 2024, our pet insurance service network further expanded to over 18,000 offline pet hospitals and service institutions, covering major cities nationwide. The pet insurance service as the carrier for services, providing over 930,000 services in the first half of the year, a year-on-year increase of three times. One out of every three pet insurance users actively choosing to use our pet services. In addition to the popular pet insurance, during the reporting period, we continued to closely follow the development trend of new consumption, and very quickly launched several innovative insurance products based on the data analysis and tracking of the users' lifestyles. Together with the ecosystem partners, we are exploring new scenarios in the food delivery sector, covering the pain points such as the food safety and delivery delays, with related product premiums increasing by three-folds.
Overall speaking, we are pretty much promoting the Healthy China and the Fittest China. Also focusing on those fashionable lifestyle groups, covering 10 different scenarios for exercise and sports, and covering the accidental insurance of tennis, riding, sports on winter and snow, et cetera. Now, taking a look at the Consumer Finance Ecosystem. In the first half of the year, facing challenging macroeconomic and industrial environment, we proactively and strategically reduced our business scale. At the end of the first half of the year, the balance of insured loans was CNY 23.1 billion, down by 15% comparing with the same period last year. We operated prudently, focusing on small, dispersed, and short-term internet Consumer Finance assets, with the borrowers primarily being near-prime consumers aged 30 50, 45, and the average loan amount was CNY 7,500, with the average duration of about 10 months.
Leveraging the big data and other technological enablers, we implemented real-time risk controls, strengthened post-loan monitoring, and achieved sustained underwriting profitability. Last but not least, taking a look at the Automotive Ecosystem. We achieved the breakthroughs in scale, quality, and service in the first half of the year. We actively embrace the wave of new energy vehicles, with the total written premiums for the new energy vehicles increasing by 215% year-on-year, and now accounting for over 10% for the total auto insurance premiums. In terms of the customer experience, we upgraded our one-stop intelligent video claim service using artificial intelligence and other technologies. At the end of July, the coverage rate of ZhongAn's video claims cases which has become the main characteristics of our company, and we have the claim cases reached 50%.
With this technology, we could complete the accident inspections in as fast as six minutes and reducing the average inspection time by 85% compared to the offline inspections. At the same time, we enhanced the risk identification and alert, focusing on underwriting private cars, and achieved a combined ratio for auto insurance that outperformed the initial average in the first half of the year. Next, for the Technology segment or ecosystem, we're going to hand call over to Wang Min.
All right, thank you very much, Simon, for introduction. Now please allow me to share with you the progress of Technology segments in the first half of the year. We have continued to invest in cutting-edge technologies like artificial intelligence and also reshaping the every link of the insurance value chain through technology.
Internally, AI has improved the efficiency across various aspects, from product marketing, risk control, and to daily operations. In consumer service, we introduced the full AI-based humanoid interactive service, which increased the efficiency of our customer service representative by over 15%. In the health insurance claim process, we integrated the intelligent camera service to enhance the experience of submitting materials and filing claims. We also launched the AI-based claims complex online customer service bot, significantly reducing the need for human assistance. In addition, we established an intelligent data collection platform and an intelligent review platform incorporating large model and a small model material classification integration solutions. These innovations reduce the human labor and time cost, effectively improving the review efficiency and further enhancing user experience.
In Technology export side, the ZhongAn technology output business, which relies on deep expertise in insurance technology, achieving significant breakthroughs in regulatory technology, data integration, and intelligence insurance core systems, intermediary middle office, and insurance digital marketing, maintaining rapid growth for our business. In the first half of 2024, the group's total Technology export revenue reached CNY 424 million, increasing by 65% year-on-year. As of June 30, 2024, we have serviced 892,000 clients and signed, in total, six new clients from insurance industries, and also seven from new clients in banking, brokerage, and some insurance founder industries. Benefiting from the rising demand of domestic information technology innovation and also promotion of Digital China initiative. In total, we have reached CNY 392 million for this Domestic Energy Output segment, increasing by 171% year-on-year.
On one hand, our products such as the property insurance core system, intelligent marketing, and data intelligence have signed by many domestic insurance industry clients. From the other hand, we have the continued expansion of our boundaries, extending to financial industries such as brokerage and banking, and further cover to the marketing infrastructure operations and other products, that are also helping clients to achieve the rapid business growth and accelerating their digital transformation. It is worth mentioning that in the terms of the business product series, we have produced the end-to-end and self-developed IFRS 17 system solution, which is compatible with multiple domestic chips, servers, and database systems, and has signed by 15 leading domestic insurance companies covering both life and property industry, and the contract amount has grown rapidly.
In the future, we will continue leveraging the technology power and capabilities of ZhongAn and continue to construct the digital economy and Digital China. Now let's hand call over to Wayne to talk to us about development of ZhongAn International.
Thank you very much, Wang Min. Now I will be responsible for telling you something about the international business. Now we have realized this Technology export business of international by ZA Tech. Established in 2018, we have established our technology and solutions based on Graphene and Fusion, and collaborate with a well-known insurers like AIA, Generali, Prudential, and Zurich. We have partners with the digital platforms like Kakao and PaiPai, continuing building and also expanding the embedded insurance businesses.
Over the six years, we have expanded into 12 countries and regions globally, and established offices in 16 countries and regions, including Tokyo, Thailand, Germany, Denmark, France, and Ireland. In May of this year, we innovatively launched the agriculture drone damage insurance production solution with DJI in Thailand, leveraging our extensive overseas collaboration network and sort of insurance technology capabilities to quickly support the DJI's related projects in pilot. In March, ZA Tech completed a $35 million U.S. Series A financing, attracting global renowned institutional investors and officially rebranded as Peak3. With a new brand facing the world. The company will accelerate expansion in more regions and speed up its layout in AI and big data, driving the global insurance industry's digital transformation towards intelligence. In terms of business data, during the reporting period, we have reached CNY 132 billion for the Technology output revenue.
We have reached CNY 127 million for our annual subscription revenue, ARR, with a loss significantly narrowing. In addition to the overseas Technology export business, in Hong Kong, our virtual bank, ZA Bank, continues to advance its vision of building one-stop digital financial service platform in Hong Kong, providing rich, convenient, and inclusive financial services to retail users and small-medium-sized enterprises. The first half of the year, the ZA Bank's income was very good. In total, we have realized the total asset of almost HK$ 20 billion, comparing with the end of 2023, 43.2% were increased. The balance of the deposit, HK$ 16.8 billion, increasing by 43.1% versus the end of 2023. Because of interest height cycle and enriched loan products, the net interest spread has been improved to 2.21% from 1.87%.
The net income was HK$ 252 million, increasing by 45.9%. Non-interest income accounting for 18.4%. At the same time, our fund business also saw substantial growth this year. By the end of the mid of this year, we had in total the reserve or balance of CNY 2.3 billion, increasing by 23 times. Also, the beneficial launch of U.S. stock trading service, further enhancing the financial product matrix for serving the clients. While we are increasing our efficiency, you can see that our overall cost has significantly reduced. The first half of this year, this figure was 119%. Comparing with the same period, it was lowered by a key percentage points. The bank loss significantly narrowed. Net loss was HKD 190 million. We have been improving by 71.7 percentage points.
Looking ahead, we will continue to upgrade our user experience and creating a more value for users' future digital financial experience. We will enhance and support the development of financial technology in Hong Kong, building a financial center with global financial influence, promoting financial inclusion, and drive quality growth at ZA Bank, and we are confident in achieving profitability. Now let's invite Gaofeng to share with you the financial performance in the first half of the year.
All right. Thank you very much, the management, for your review of the past. Now I have the responsibility introducing the financial performance and investment situation. First half of the year, ZhongAn achieved a financial service revenue of CNY 15.08 billion, a year-on-year increase of 19% by ecosystem. Health Ecosystem staying true to our mission of providing insurance with the technology and a caring hand.
We continue to enrich our health insurance products to cover more people and meet the users' needs. We also introduced a new offering in our health product matrix. We also have the CNY 4.876 billion reached in terms of the insurance service revenue, a year-on-year increase of 22.7%. Digital Life Ecosystem. With the continued prosperity of the e-commerce industry, we have rapid growth of our innovative products like the pet insurance, et cetera. The insurance service revenue was CNY 7.07 billion in the first half of the year-on-year increase of 24.2%. Consumer Finance Ecosystem. Facing the pressure from the uncertain macroeconomic environment and industrial challenges, we adopted a more prudent operating model and actively scaled down the business. In the first half of the year, our Consumer Finance Ecosystem insurance service revenue was CNY 2.28 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 1.7%. Automotive Ecosystem.
We focus on underwriting in the private car sector and continue to embrace the wave of new energy vehicle. In total, the insurance service revenue reached CNY 863 million, year-on-year increase of 24.2%. In the first half of the year, the particular underwriting overall combined ratio in the first half of the year was 97.9%, marking the fourth consecutive year for underwriting profitability. Combined ratio was 60.7%. Combined expense ratio 37.2%. The combined underwriting ratio increased by 2.1 percentage points compared with the same period last year. With expense ratio improving by 1.5 percentage points. Breaking down by ecosystem. The Health Ecosystem had a combined ratio in the first half of the year of 95.7%, up 3.2 percentage points. The overall loss ratio remained stable at 38.1%, while the combined expense ratio rose by 3.1 percentage points.
Mainly due to increased investment backend service infrastructure to enhance user experience for insurance applications and claims. Digital Life Ecosystem. The combined ratio remains stable at 99.9%, with overall performance consistent with last year. The combined loss ratio was 71.7%, up 3.3 percentage points from the same period last year, while the combined expense ratio decreased by 3.2 percentage points to 28.3%. The change in cost structure was primarily due to the changes in product matrix. Facing the macroeconomy and the challenges, the Consumer Finance Ecosystem had a combined ratio of 99.1%, up 8.4 percentage points year-on-year, due to the 13 percentage points increase in loss ratio to 73.8%.
However, since the second half of last year, we have actively scaled down the Consumer Finance business and tightened the risk controls, leading to an improvement in loss ratio compared with the second half of last year. The quality of online assets and various indicators have been improving quarter by quarter. The expense ratio decreased by 4.6 percentage points due to the lower consumer acquisition costs. We have focused more on servicing existing users in line with the year's macroeconomic and industrial cycle. This particular expense ratio was 25.3%. Automotive Ecosystem's combined ratio improved by 3.1 percentage points year-on-year to 94.2%. Combined loss ratio increased by 7.6 percentage points to 66.7% year-on-year, primarily due to the increased travel in the first half of the year. The overall combined expense ratio decreased by 10.7 percentage points to 27.5%.
Also, on the investment side, we continue to adopt the fixed income plus capital allocation strategy. During the reporting period, the total investment assets of ZhongAn domestic insurance funds amounted to approximately CNY 37.69 billion, of which fixed income investments totaled CNY 28.4 billion, accounting for 75.4%, mainly consisting the bonds and bond funds. Benefiting from the strong performance of domestic bond market in the first half of the year, we achieved relatively stable returns with the total investment income from domestic insurance funds reaching CNY 620 million. We had annualized the total investment yield and net investment yield during the reporting period of 3.3% and 2.3%, approximately, respectively, remaining stable. In the summary, with the service revenue growth this year, we are achieving continuous underwriting profitability despite the uncertain external environment.
It is worth mentioning that both Technology and also the Banking ecosystem significantly reduced their losses in the first half of the year. We also benefited from the continued digital transformation of the domestic and global financial industries, leading to a rapid growth in Technology output revenue With the increased proportion of productized revenue and the release the management efficiencies, the technologies segment losses narrowed significantly. ZA Bank's interest earning asset scale and net interest margin growth drove rapid net income growth and improved the operational efficiency, and the scale effects further optimized indicators, such as ZA Bank's cost-to-income ratio and showing the also clear path to profitability for ZA Bank. The company's capital remains at sufficient level, comprehensive solvency adequacy ratio of 2%, 4% as of June 30, 2024.
We would like to thank the investors and analysts in the capital market for their support and companionship along the way. Looking ahead, in a complex and ever-changing global economic environment, we will continue to uphold our mission and also we will refine our internal operations and remain user-centric and focusing on enhancing user experience for everyone. Thank you. We're going to have the Q&A, please, first of all, identify yourself before the question, do not ask more than two questions. Please announce the way to ask question. Just to remind everyone that you can press star one one to ask your question, but this is only for Chinese line. The first question is from Rick Zhao, from Morgan Stanley.
All right. Thank you very much for giving me the opportunity. I am analyst, Zhang Yao Rick from Morgan Stanley. I have two questions. The first one is on the investment side. We have seen that in the first half the year, the overall revenue decreased a little bit. What were the reasons? How we are going to face this particular kind of environment. We are going to further allocate the resources and what is expectation. The second question is that in terms of the health insurance, for instance, the revenue of the premium actually decreased, but still the service revenue increased. What are the reasons of having this particular kind of a difference? Could you help us to understand the major breakdown by different insurance types? Thank you very much.
Thank you very much for the question. Let me answer the question about the health insurance and Gaofeng will answer the rest. In the health insurance sector this year, we have had that the total premium exceeded CNY 1 trillion. It is really promising in the future. We are going to see more product innovation opportunities. Just now in the business review, I have already shared that for the strategy of our development, we still are building around the demand. For health insurance, we have several products. The first one is represented by personal clinic policy and 1 million health insurance coverage products. This is still our major products. All the way up to now, we have been incorporating all kinds of different value-added services and also helping to enrich the essential drug list and to make sure that this bigger product is vital. In terms of the networking hospitals, we have also had a breakthrough.
In total, we are expanding that from public institutions to private hospitals as well. In terms of inclusive finance, the Zhongmin Bao as the product, is actually positioned as the millionaire claim health insurance to the mass public. We are covering the three kinds of people that cannot be covered by reimbursement, the super old, and also the chronic illness patients. The patients with preexisting conditions. This particular product lowered down the threshold of underwriting and increased the upper limit on the age and no health announcement and also some of the occupational limits. This is more inclusive and also more applicable. Also, we have been adding some of the non-standardized service, like the health checkups and the small drug box, et cetera. While we are upgrading this, the total written premium increased a lot. We hope that Zhongmin Bao is going to become the next breakthrough edge.
We are talking about the outpatient and merchant health insurance coverage, and also some of the short-term chronic illness insurance. The particular contribution has been increasing, as we have already mentioned, that we had a very big potential in this area. Last but not least, I would like to say that originally, we were developing some of the values of money health insurance products. For now, we are focusing on medium to high-end health insurance sector. Leveraging the internet channel, we are selling the insurance policies to those affluent users. For instance, the chart version of medium to high-end health insurance that we have promoted and covering multiple pain points of the parents and covering more scenarios. For instance, the kind of needs of getting outpatient treatments by most of the children. In the future, we are going to cover more group of population. Gaofeng, please answer the question about the investment.
Thank you very much. I think that in total, we have a very good arrangement of the investment. Overall speaking, in terms of the investment, it is pretty much based on the fixed income asset. By the end of June, the overall kinds of asset of the investment is CNY 37.7 billion, 75% on fixed income investment, but flat versus last year. 55% are bonds and bond funds. This was also flat versus last year. Among the bonds that we invested, 99.2% of them are having a rating of AA. With the lower interest rates, with regards to fixed income asset, we are going to actively adjust the duration and also enhancing our yield. Also, we have focused a lot on the changes.
By the end of June, we had 6.4% of our investment of shares and funds. In total, we do have some of the adjustment of our allocation and the portfolio strategies. We are going to increase and enhance the overall yield and try to reduce the volatility. The comprehensive investment yield will be higher. In the future, while we are controlling the certain scale, we are going to also focus more on the allocation to those segments with a higher dividend, to be in line with the long-term economic development mindset of Chinese government. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Let's have the next question. Next question comes from Mao Ching-jing from CICC, please.
Thank you for this opportunity. I am Mao Qingqing from CICC. I have two questions. The first one is related to the growth opportunity of insurance products. How do we actually define the future growth opportunities apart from million healthcare and also the refund insurance? What are the other potential areas that we're going to see the growth? My second question is about the credit insurance. We have been tested many times of the trustability of credit insurance, but still the environment is quite stressful towards this business. How do you plan the credit insurance in order to maintain the profitability, and whether you're confident maintaining the profitability?
All right. Thank you very much, Mao Ching-jing, for your questions. Let me answer the first question. See, in ZhongAn, we always raised the concept of growth by quality. In order to understand whether the business is growing or not, we have three points.
The first one is that whether the future market scale is enough and potential is enough. Second, we're going to consider that whether there are some of the untipping demand of customers, we can fulfill the mission of providing insurance product with a warming and caring hand. Lastly, we're going to consider the quality of the long-term business development. Just now, you were talking about several specialty insurance products that we have developed, and they are in line with these three points, as I mentioned. For those, some of the business segments that I already talked to you about. In the future, we're going to focus on, first of all, the auto insurance. The total premium growth was pretty much higher than the initial average, and profitability ratio was also increasing.
In Chinese, you can see the auto insurance is the biggest one. Penetration, of course, of the internet auto insurance is quite low. For ZhongAn, the auto insurance total premium scale was growing very fast. Still, our market share is still quite low. This year, on the service side, we have been doing some of the high-techs and trying to differentiate ourselves from, for instance, by the end of the July, we were developing the video-based claim service and had a little bit of breakthrough. At the current stage, we can have around 50% of the claims that are done over the line or on the line. Looking in the future, we're going to seize the opportunity of combining internet technology with auto insurance, and hopefully that the total premium will be further increased.
The second opportunity is the Digital Lifestyle Ecosystem. On top of the e-commerce and travel business, we have been extending the innovative products to other areas like the pet insurance, and we have more and more innovative products. Taking the pet insurance as example, we have upgraded the basic protection-based accidental insurance and also emphasizing on critical illness insurance for pets. This is a very good mitigation of the missing demand. Also this year, we hope and we're having hope that by leveraging our own technology advantage, we're able to, for instance, do more innovations because of a better pricing and also better design of the products. Around the whole China, we've had almost 100 million pets and pet owners, but now the penetration is still quite low. Last but least, we're talking about the Health Ecosystem.
For instance, as everybody knows about the personal clinic policy and the million healthcare policy. Around this particular area, we do more innovations around the service provision and also the stratification of Patient or the customer clusters. We've been promoting the products like Zhongmin Bao and also some of the other products like the outpatient, the merchant insurance, and the car owners insurance, et cetera, which we have just shared the colors upon. Thank you for this question. Now, Wang Min, you can answer the question relating to the Consumer Finance.
Right. Thank you very much for your question. Considering the pressure of the macro environment and the adjustment of this policies industry, and from last year onwards, we have been shrinking this total premium on this area of credit insurance.
You can see that in terms of this particular underwriting balance and also the total underwriting scale, these two were reducing significantly from the disclosed data. You could see now with such a large pressure from the outside, in the first half of the year, we were profitable on the ecosystem of Consumer Finance. All the time, since always, we were quite precautious in thinking about our mindsets and combined with the risk control model that is empowered by the technology. This year, we focus more on the underwriting renewal, combining with different platforms with the users. You can see that the combined ratio of the first half of this year was increasing with the same period last year. If you're comparing with the second half of last year was improving.
Overall speaking, in the second quarter of the first half, also we had a very good quarter-by-quarter improvement. Also at the same time, we are optimizing all the parameters of the users. In the second half of the year, we're going to maintain a prudent attitude and also continue provide the service to those absent customers that we have already covered, and also maintain a very stringent risk control standard.
All right, pretty much for my answer. Thank you. Thank you for the question. Now, let's have Michael Li from Bank of America Securities. Sorry, the voice is quite low. In the first half of the year, we had a very good trend. Now we are in the cycle of interest lowering. In this bigger cycle, what are the strategies for us to cope with this cycle? What is expectation?
Second question is about the Technology segment. We had a very good growth. Can you talk to us about this more? What is the plan in the future? All right.
Thank you very much, Michael, for this question. This is a very good question. Let me repeat your question. You asked that for the interest lowering, what is the impact to ZA Bank, and what has been impacted for, right?
To be honest with you, this is pretty much impactful. For different business segments, we have different impact. The overall impact will be different. For ZA Bank, this is pretty much active. First of all, in terms of the net spread, which is going to be further squeezed. Comparing with the traditional industry, at the current stage, we have a low percentage of CASA against the deposit.
Overall speaking, we are going to have a much quicker capital cost reduction than the traditional banks. On the asset side, we are going to see more demand of getting loans. We are going to bring more revenue. On the bank side, the bond held can increase also its price and increase in the investment yield. Also for the non-interest income, the shares and equity that we have invested are going to be positively impacted because of a more active capital market. These are all something that we have observed. Second question is about the Technology export. Now let's give the floor to Wang Min to answer this question.
All right. Thank you very much, Michael, for your question. First of all, the Technology segment increased rapidly in the first half of the year. We had also a more robust growth for the domestic Technology export business, benefiting by the more policies to benefiting the Digital China and establishment of digitized economy. We have a very big confidence over the long-term growth of the Technology export business. I really understand that you pay a lot of attention to Technology segment, not only growth, but you are expecting to see an improvement of profitability. The first half of the year, be it the Technology export in China and also overseas, we have been shortening the losses a lot. On one hand, we are increasing the percentage contributed by the high gross margin products. As for AIGC and other new technologies, we are actively applying them, helping us to actually increase the efficiency in terms of product R&D.
Of course, that we are enhancing our internal management capability and efficiency and lower down the cost as a result. While we are increasing our revenue scale, it is helping us to manage our cost very successfully and thus improving our profitability further. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Now let's have the final question. Xue Zhao from Zhongtai Securities. Thank you very much.
I am [Alice] from Citi Securities. I have two questions. The first one is that we can see that the total premium growth was slowed down the first half of the year. What were reasons? What about the guidance? What is the placement strategy on the channels? Second one is about the U.S. bond, and we remember that we are going to do the U.S. note debt and how are you going to pay back that debt? All right.
Thank you very much for the question. You can see that the slowdown of the growth of the total premium in the first half of the year. The first reason was that the consumer finance business was shrinking actively based on the macro and external environment. We had a strategic adjustment of the user acquisition on the health insurance area. We wanted to get acquired the new customers in a more economical way. Based on these two reasons, our overall gross written premium decreased or growth rate decreased. Looking ahead to the second half and also the future, we're going to still be user-centric and focus on the elevation of the user experience. Hopefully, that we're going to have a sustainable development. Gaofeng please answer the question about the financing and also the dollar bond.
Right. Thank you for this question. In 2020, we have issued $1 billion of high level debt bond in overseas. In 2022, we repurchased $49.9 million of the bond in total. In terms of the duration, we have $590 million bonds is going to be due next year, July, and $360 million bond will be due by March of 2026. At current stage, our cash flow is quite stable, solvency ratio quite sufficient. We are actively preparing for the payback. Considering the external environment, we are also going to think about the possibility of doing refinancing.
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