Dear investors. Hello, everyone. Welcome everybody to attend the ZhongAn Online Interim Results 2023 announcement. I have to remind you that this is the English line for listening only mode. Before and after the presentation, we're going to have a Q&A. Now I'm going to turn the call over to the Head of IR, Ms. Zhang Ling.
Dear investors, analysts, and friends from the media, good afternoon. Welcome, everybody, to attend the ZhongAn Online Results 2023 announcement. I'm the Head of IR, Ms. Zhang Ling. First of all, introducing the management. General Manager Jiang Xing of ZhongAn Online, CFO and Chief Investment Officer, Li Gaofeng of ZhongAn Online, Executive Vice General Manager and Board Secretary Ms. Wang Min, and also Wayne Xu, the President of the ZhongAn International. Now I'll give the floor to General Manager Jiang Xing.
Hello, fellow investors and analysts. Good afternoon.
I'm Jiang Xing, General Manager of ZhongAn Online. Thank you very much for attending ZhongAn 2023 Interim Results conference. Thank you for your continuous attention and support to ZhongAn. 2023 is the 10th anniversary of ZhongAn's founding. For the past 10 years, we have always shouldered the mission of empowering the finance business with technologies and providing insurance service with a caring hand. The cumulative total of more than 57.4 billion policies issued, servicing more than 500 million users. We are here to dual-engine strategy of insurance plus technology, insisting on the in-depth integration of technology and insurance in the whole process, and assisting in the digital transformation of the global insurance industry. This year, we were listed on the China top 500 companies of 2023, published by Fortune Magazine for the first time, and became the only insurance technology company on the list.
Next, we would like to share with you on our achievements in the first half of this year. In the first half of 2023, the domestic economy and society fully resumed the normalized operation, the demand gradually recovered. The company's development showed steady progress, achieving GWP of CNY 14.5 billion, a year-over-year growth of 37.5%, of which the GWP of our proprietary channels contribution increased by 8.6 percentage points to 30.6%. In terms of the gross written premium, ZhongAn steadily ranked ninth in the China's P&C insurance industry, further increasing our market share. We are the fastest growing company among the top 10 P&C insurers in China. This year, the company adopted a new accounting standard for the insurance contracts, HKFRS 17, under which insurance revenue amounted to CNY 12.682 billion, a year-over-year increase of 23.9%.
Benefiting from our business strategy of sustainable growth with quality, our underwriting combined ratio was 95.8% the first half of 2023, an optimizing of 0.7 percentage points compared with the same period last year. Underwriting profit reached CNY 536 million, an increasing of 47.6% year-over-year. In addition, benefiting from the significant improvement in investment income, the company turned to a profit in the first half of 2023, achieving a net attributable profit of CNY 221 million. Take a look at the technology export. Benefiting from the recovery of domestic economy and continued digital transformation of the global financial industry, the technology export business achieved revenue of CNY 267 million, representing a year-over-year increase of 22%, of which the domestic technology revenue grew at a rate of 35.5%. For the banking business, the ZA Bank, our virtual bank in Hong Kong, further improved its financial product matrix and user monetization.
In the first half of this year, ZA Bank achieved net income of HKD 152 million, an increase of 13% year-on-year. Next, I would like to share with you the development of our company in the first half of the year by business segments and ecosystems. In terms of health ecosystem, this year marks the eighth year since our launch of the flagship health insurance product, Personal Clinic Policy. Since its launch, the product has gone through a cumulative total of 22 iterations to satisfy the escalating and personalized health needs of the consumers and has continued to gain a strong vitality, driving the rapid growth of the million CNY coverage medical insurance industry.
Represented by Personal Clinic Policy reached 51.5% in the first half of the year, represented by the Personal Clinic Policy and zero deductible version of Personal Clinic Policy, providing the consumers with practical protection through a more flexible product matrix, which was widely welcomed by the consumers. Focusing on the multilevel and diversified needs of consumers, we have always enriched the product matrix of our health ecosystem, also launched the multi-claim critical illness insurance product with a 267.6% growth in the first half of the year. Also, we innovatively incorporate a full range of healthcare services, like online consultation and drug purchasing. We had a 52.8% growth in the outpatient insurance product. In the first half of the year, our outpatient emergency insurance claims service has driven the frequency of the service provision.
In the first half of the year, the total claim service exceeded 520,000 times, with the average number of services for a single user or consumer reaching 3.5 times. In the first half of 2023, the health ecosystem provided the health protection to approximately 12.41 million insured users, realizing total premium of CNY 5,018 million, representing a year-on-year increase of 15.9%. Individual paid users of the health ecosystem were approximately 10.26 million, with a per capita premium of approximately CNY 489, representing a year-on-year increase of 8.5%. Next, take a look at the digital lifestyle ecosystem. We are actively embracing the development of digital economy and serve the consumers in multidimensional scenarios. In the first half of 2023, the e-commerce economy continued to release dividends and recovered strongly.
Our e-commerce business segment continues to expand its network of internet platforms, with the GWP reaching CNY 3,098 million, representing a year-on-year increase of 35.8%, of which the premiums for the return insurance grew at a rate of 45.9%. With the rapid recovery of domestic tourism industry in the first half of the year, our travel and tourism business segment also benefited from the industry's recovery, with a GWP of travel and tourism business segment reaching CNY 1,442 million, representing a year-on-year increase of 118.1%. Apart from those mature businesses, we are also developing innovative businesses following the trend of new consumption and exploring new growth curves in the digital lifestyle ecosystem. In the first half of 2023, our total pet insurance premium transactions amounted to approximately CNY 200 million, representing a year-on-year growth of nearly 100%.
We served more than 620,000 pet owners in the current period, and more than 3.8 million pet owners cumulatively. In addition to protection of pet medical care and accidents, we embedded our services in multi-scenarios of pet ecosystem, teamed up with nearly 10,000 offline pet hospitals and service organizations to serve the entire life cycle of the pet, and launched a variety of innovative insurance products such as pet food safety insurance, the pet consignment insurance, the pet anesthesia accidental death insurance, the accidental insurance for the employees for the pet industry, and other innovative products. We also use technology to actively explore and develop innovative products, putting insurance technology to work with the real economy and give it back to the community to create public welfare value.
We have designed exclusive insurance products in segments such as household property, cybersecurity, pool safety, gig economy, beauty and telecoms, anti-fraud, and are actively embracing the development of digital economy. In the first half of 2023, digital lifestyle ecosystem realized a GWP of CNY 5,836 million, an increase of 52.8% year-on-year. Next, take a look at the consumer finance. We've been having a very stable and solid growth for the domestic economy, and the consumer finance industry has accordingly seen some recovery, with our consumer finance ecosystems GWP amounting to CNY 2,787 million in the first half of this year, representing a year-on-year increase of 52%. Our consumer finance ecosystem has always adhered to the strategy of a steady and proven development and firmly implemented strict risk control standards and dynamically adjusted the risk buffer cushion in conjunction with the study of the macroeconomy and environment.
We had also experienced the cycles during the pandemic phase and accumulated experience. We had a stable growth of our business Which actually show the ability of risk control and operations back then. Taking a look at the auto ecosystem, which achieved actually a very good growth, even if the base number is actually quite small. We were heavily investing into this particular business segment because the market potential is huge. In the first half of 2023, the GWP of the auto ecosystem experienced a high growth with the increase of 54.3%, realizing the GWP of CNY 180 and 22 million. We actively embrace the new energy auto insurance opportunities and also the policy benefits, providing auto insurance products and services to new energy vehicle owners for more than 20 brands, bringing new momentum to overall auto insurance growth.
In the first half of the year, the total premiums of the new energy auto insurance underwritten by ZhongAn in the first half of this year growing by more than 228.7% year-on-year. We wish that we are going to bring more auto insurance to online and bring more differentiated products and services. This is going to continuously becoming our strategies so that the auto ecosystem is going to be developing on a better track. In 2023, we are actively driving the deepening of ZhongAn's branding and also proprietary channels, covering Bilibili, Douyin, Kuaishou, Xiaohongshu, and other mainstream short video and live streaming and social media platforms. The total number of followers on their channel-wise is more than 25 million.
Focusing on the brand concept of ZhongAn in the first half of the year, we inevitably created the breakthrough and forge ahead boss, the IP, which is the micro documentary series created independently to help the spread of small and micro-sized shops, while bringing more production to shops through ZhongAn's products. This has exceeded 20 million broadcast across the network by the end of the first half of the year. Brand marketing has also won all kinds of different awards. From the financial perspective of the proprietary channel, the GWP of the proprietary channel reached CNY 4.4 billion in the first half of this year, representing a year-on-year growth of 90.6%. Number of paid users increased by 24.8% to 6.18 million, and premium per capita reached CNY 712, up 52.7% from the same period in 2022.
In addition, through our multi-product service matrix, we are able to better interact with the consumers in our own ecosystem. The user stickiness and also the monetization improved, from the standpoint of renewal rate, multi-policyholders, and number of policies per capita, et cetera. Next, I would like to share some of the colors on our InsurTech area. We are laying out our cutting-edge technology segments, such as artificial intelligence, to reshape all parts of the insurance value chain through technology. Especially ChatGPT and other relevant industries are developing very fast in 2023. Based on solid participation and participation in AI over the past decade, this year, we released the very first AIGC application white paper in the domestic insurance industry. Combining more than 30 specific application scenarios of AIGC technology in the field of insurance.
At the same time, we released the first AIGC application map in the insurance industry at the 2023 World Artificial Intelligence Conference, showcasing the innovative application practice and exploration of AI plus insurance. Artificial intelligence is used internally to improve the efficiency in all aspects of our business, from products to marketing, to risk control and daily operations. In addition, this year, we further launched the ZhongAn AIGC middle platform, Lingxi, and the first batch of insurance vertical AIGC application integrated intelligence content creation platform, Easy Creation, as well as the upgraded version of C-Wisdom operation analysis platform with dialogue generating AI, to better leverage AIGC for external and internal empowerment. In the first half of 2023, our technology export business continued to develop the domestic and overseas markets and assisted the digital transformation process of the global financial industry.
We signed up a total of 35 new insurance industry chain customers in the first half of the year, achieving revenue of CNY 267 million, a year-on-year increase of 23%. As of 30th of June of 2023, our technology export business had serviced a total of more than 750 customers. In the first half of the year, ZhongAn Technology continued to make a significant breakthrough in the area of P&C, life insurance industry data platform, and also insurance mobile marketing, and continued to maintain record growth of our insurance technology business. Our technology export business achieved revenue of CNY 150 million in the first half of the year, representing a year-on-year increase of 35.5%.
In terms of business growth, in 2023, we signed up 14 clients and provided integrated user management platform plus operations plus services, helping clients including Guomin Pension Insurance and Lian Life to build one-stop digital insurance marketing platform. In terms of the business production series, the new generation of P&C insurance core system of ZhongAn Technology MATE has been put online and used by a number of P&C insurance companies in China this year. In the field of data, we have cooperated with a number of life insurance companies to carry out data mid-platform and data intelligence, and provide customers with services such as data planning, data governance, and construction of the data mid-platform. In terms of the new digital infrastructure this year, ZhongAn's DevCube R&D operation and maintenance integration platform was selected as one of the CAICT's panorama of high-quality digital transformation products and services of 2023.
In addition to the consolidation of original foundation in the insurance industry, our technology products have signed the new contracts with a total of eight customers from banking and securities industry this year. In the future, ZhongAn Technology will continue to help consumers and customers in financial industry in their digital transformation, and also, at the same time, accumulate the wealth of cross-vertical general experience to further broaden our customer base. With that, this concludes my presentation. Next, I would like to turn the call over to Wayne, President of ZhongAn International, to give introduction about the development of ZhongAn International first half of 2023.
Thank you, Simon. Now, I will be responsible for talking about the performance of ZhongAn International in the first half of 2023.
In the first half of 2023, ZhongAn International continued to develop the overseas market and assisted the digital transformation process of customers in a number of industries around the world. First of all, ZA Tech has been breaking new ground in both domestic and overseas markets, setting a new benchmark for global InsurTech. To date, we are present in Japan, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, and other Asian markets. This year, we also made a few breakthroughs in European market. ZA Tech has a unique range of cloud-native modularization, no-code, low-code digital solution, including insurance core system, distribution system, customer data platform, and AI solutions, which provides the digital infrastructure to support all types of insurance business models across all insurance product lines and across the end-to-end insurance business value chain. ZA Tech clients can be divided into 2 categories: insurance companies and InsurTech platforms.
For insurance companies, our next generation distributed insurance core system, Graphene, can assist insurers in connecting with various eco partners locally and launching the recommended and scenario-based insurance production products adapted to the local environment. For insurance companies in the early stage of digital transformation, we provide Nano, a lightweight SaaS insurance core system, to help customers building a low-cost, fast-to-launch core system for digital insurance products and help them take small steps of try and learn and rapid iteration in the process of digital transformation. For internet platform clients, we provide Fusion, a low-code insurance distribution solution to assist internet platforms to provide more value-added services to their seed clients and improving the efficiency of traffic monetization. In addition to strengthening our existing customer base, we have made significant breakthroughs in overseas export business in both Southeast Asia and Europe.
We have entered into a regional partnership with the Home Credit and largest local customer finance platform in Southeast Asia to provide Fusion and insurance distributor solution with embedded insurance products in two markets, which is Indonesia and Vietnam. We have also crossed an upsell the Home Credit partners to provide Income Insurance Limited, a leading local property and casualty insurance company with Nano, a lightweight SaaS insurance core system, further expanding our business possibilities in Southeast Asia. In terms of core system, we leverage the technology advantages of Graphene's claimant module to assist the Prudential Insurance Thailand microclaims module to go live. This enhanced the Prudential Insurance microclaims service capability and also help us to validate the feasibility of the functional modules' single selling format, opening up new space for ZA Tech in overseas market.
In July, we successfully entered the traditional insurance core system replacement track, exporting our core system product, Graphene, to one of the largest insurance groups in the Central and Eastern European market, helping them to realize the seamless support from end-to-end functionality of traditional motor insurance in the five European markets with rapid replication and go live. This legacy insurance core system replacement project is a major milestone of ZA Tech's development, and we will continue to iterate the cloud-based legacy insurance core baseline and explore this huge market opportunity for the global insurance core system replacement. As a very important part of ZhongAn's layout, ZA Bank has also continued its rapid development in the Hong Kong market this year.
As the first virtual bank to officially open and the first to obtain an insurance agent organization license, and the first to obtain a securities trading license from the SFC in Hong Kong, ZA Bank in 2023 continues to develop the path of building Hong Kong's largest financial service platform and providing retail customers and SMEs with rich, convenient, and inclusive financial services. In order to further promote the concept of financial inclusion and assist the transformation of Hong Kong's banking industry into the financial technology, ZA Bank officially launched the Express Online company account opening, which is onboarding the service of first of April 2023 to provide local SME customers with extreme fast account opening experience to help the clients increasing market opportunities.
Through this function, customers can complete the application for account opening in as fast as six minutes and open an account in as fast as two hours. By now, ZA Bank has become one of the most feature-rich virtual banks in Hong Kong market, creating a one-stop integrated financial service platform through a fully digitized operating model for mobile phones, providing users with 24-hour digital banking services such as deposits, loans, transfer, consumption, foreign exchange, insurance, investment, and corporate banking. In our retail business, we are building on our traditional banking products and services by innovating the experience of enhancing user preference and activity. As of 30th of June of 2023, ZA Bank has close to 700,000 retail customers, with the penetration rate of 10% of the population aged 18 and above in Hong Kong.
The fund investment business was officially launched in August of last year, providing users with hundreds of fund products, which are well welcomed by users. As of 30th of June of 2023, the asset managed scale of retail users reached HKD 537 million. As of 30th of June of 2023, ZA Bank has a deposit balance of approximately HKD 10.7 billion and a loan balance of approximately HKD 4.9 billion, with the bank net interest margin rising to 1.87%. During the reporting period, benefiting from the interest rate hike cycle and a continuous improvement of our product matrix, ZA Bank's monetization capability also improved significantly, recording a net revenue of approximately HKD 152 million.
At the same time, we focus on the quality of our business and enhance our operational efficiency with the bank's net loss ratio narrowing by approximately 60 percentage points to 131.8% compared to 191.6% for the same period in 2022. Looking ahead, ZhongAn International will continue to leverage the synergetic effect of the brand to further upgrade user experience and create more values for users featured into a financial experience. We will continue to help Hong Kong developing fintech, building a financial center with a global financial influence and promote financial inclusion. Next, I would like to give the floor to Gaofeng to share with you the financial performance of the interim results 2023.
Thank you, Wayne. Next, I will be introducing the company's overall financial performance the first half of the year.
ZhongAn has adopted Hong Kong IFRS 17 insurance contracts in place of the former from this year, and related financial data for the same period 2022 has been retrospectively adjusted. First of all, I'd like to introduce to you the insurance revenue under the new standard in the first half of 2023. ZhongAn achieved insurance revenue of RMB 12.682 billion, a year-over-year increase of 23.9%. Next, I will be giving you an overview of the growth of the insurance revenue across ecosystems for the first half of the year.
In terms of health ecosystem, we have long adhered to original intention of being the national health insurance for 100 million people insisting on strategic direction of medical plus InsurTech plus insurance, constructed a one-stop medical insurance service platform and system, and maintaining a stable growth by continuously enriching our product matrix and improving our service capabilities. Our health ecosystem has demonstrated a high degree of resilience, and insurance revenue increased by 5.9% to RMB 3,968 million compared with the same period last year. In terms of digital lifestyle ecosystem, as the domestic economy resumed its normalized operation, we saw a significant recovery of the e-commerce and travel market, which drove the sales of e-commerce insurance products and travel insurance products within the ecosystem to improve.
Innovative products like pet insurance, loan insurance, and health insurance continued to grow at a high rate. Digital lifestyle ecosystem insurance revenue in first half of the year increased by 42.5% year-on-year to CNY 5,701 million. In the first half of the year, as the domestic economy recovered, revenue from the consumer finance ecosystem revenue or, I mean, the insurance revenue amounted to CNY 2,318 million, an increasing of 17% on a year-on-year basis under the new accounting standard. Lastly, on the motor insurance, benefiting from recovery of traffic and travel this year, increasing the insurance revenue in the first half of the year amounting to CNY 695 million, a year-on-year increase of 35.9%, which was higher than the growth rate of original premiums.
In the first half of 2023, the underwriting business grew at a high quality and delivered sequential underwriting profits. Our underlying combined ratio was 95.8% under the new accounting standard, an improvement of 0.7 percentage points in the same period last year. In terms of health ecosystem, the underwriting combined ratio was 92.5% in the first half of the year, an improvement of 3.8 percentage points compared with the same period last year. In the first half of the year, we embraced the window of recovery, traffic modernization, increased the investment in marketing consumer acquisition. The corresponding expense ratio increased by 13.3 percentage points to 54.5%, and loss ratio decreased by 17.1 percentage points year-on-year to 38%, due to the changes in product mixes and further application of the whole environment. In terms of digital lifestyle ecosystem, we focus on the establishment of proprietary channels.
You can see that we have actually maintained a stable combined ratio. Also, in terms of the motor insurance, the claim ratio or I mean the loss ratio increased by 2.1 percentage points to 59.1%, due to the resumption of the traffic travel in the first half of the year. Expense rate improved by 2.8 percentage points to 38.2%. The underwriting combined ratio improved marginally by 0.5 percentage points. Let's have a recap of the performance investment segment. In the first half of 2023, the global macro environment was volatile. Domestic and international capital markets were complex. The domestic bond market was shockingly strong, while the stock market was markedly differentiated by industry.
In the face of the challenging market environment, the company has always maintained its strategic determination, managed tactical asset allocation flexibly under the leadership of a strategic asset allocation, adhere to the prudent and cautious investment philosophy, strengthen the risk management and control. As of June 30, 2023, we have our domestic interest funds that can manage to approximately CNY 36,231 million, of which 73% were fixed income investment and credit bonds dominating the domestic bond investments, of which 99% were externally rated A and above, and additional to equities and equity funds accounting to a total of 8%. In the first half of the year, the investment income of interest funds improved significantly compared with last year. The total investment income increasing to CNY 723 million from CNY 110 million in the same period last year.
Annualized total investment return improving to 4% from 0.6% in the same period last year. Mainly from improvement in gains and losses on changes in the fair value, while the annualized net income return remained stable at 2.2%. Let's take a look at the overall key financial performance of the company. The underwriting business has achieved sustained profitability with continued improvement, and other segments have also seen a narrowing of loss ratios. In addition of company's overall balance sheet in robustness, with a total asset of CNY 49.2 billion as of June 30, 2023, representing an increase of approximately 3.3% compared with the same period in 2022. Comprehensive solvency ratio level maintained an adequate level. This year we have also continued to receive the Baa1 and principal rating from Moody's Ratings and positive outlooks, underlying the resilience of our operations.
In 2023, the tenth year of our establishment, we'll also continue to take on the mission of empowering the finance business with technology and provide insurance service with a caring heart. We shall not forget our original intention and mark a new higher level. Thank you. This is the end of the presentation, now I would like to have a Q&A.
Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. Now we are going to have Q&A. If you would like to ask question, you can press star one. The first question is from Michael Li, from Bank of America.
Thank you very much for this opportunity. I'm from Bank of America. Two questions. First one is about technology. We know ZhongAn is a leading InsurTech company in China and has a lot of important technology export. Recently, everybody's talking about AI.
The question is, any placement of AI and layout? How do you think that AI is going to change the insurance industry? Second question is for the ZA Bank. We have witnessed the quick development of the ZA Bank in the past two years in Hong Kong. I would like to ask you that, for a digital bank, compared with the traditional bank, what are the differences? What about the different strategies implemented by ZA Bank?
Thank you, Michael, for your question. First, I'd like to answer the question about AI. Since our founding, we've been investing a lot in the R&D of AI. We are not like Baidu or Alibaba, which is a company of developing the fundamental and underlying technologies. We are more focusing on the combination and application of AI with insurance and reshaping the values of the value chain of the insurance industry.
This is the key focus. Since this year, based on our experience and also technology know-how of AI, we have actually published the very first AIGC application white paper first in the insurance industry. In terms of 30 different scenarios of applications and also the application points. In this white paper, there is a sorting out and also a sharing of use cases. On the World Artificial Intelligence Conference, we have also announced the very first application map of AIGC for the insurance industry, showcasing the practice and exploration of ZhongAn online for AI plus insurance.
This includes the six dimensions of product design and innovation, marketing and business development, the underwriting and claim, customer service, the wisdom and intelligent officing, and R&D management, covering 80 different scenarios of AIGC, covering the P&C and life and agents and proprietary channels and other information channels as well. From internal perspective, we are able to enhance our efficiency and innovation by using AI. Externally, we have been launching the AIGC mid-platform, Lingxi, and also the very first AIGC application content creation platform, EasyCreation, and also the C-Wisdom, the operational analysis platform that has been updated already with the ability of the dialogue generation AI. We are more adapted to the AIGC capabilities, so the institutional users are able to be embedded with this professional knowledge bank and realize the application of AIGC in the different verticals.
Looking towards the future, we are looking forward to deeper connection of AI and the insurance industry and providing better user experience. I do believe that when time passes by, we are able to have more and more scenarios that are able to be more matured with the application of AIGC, which is pretty much under our expectations. With regards to the ZA Bank, I'd like to give the floor to Wayne.
Thank you. Thank you, Michael, for the question about ZA Bank. As of the first half of this year, ZA Bank has been opening for three years. For the past three years, we had all kinds of different breakthroughs. In terms of the user scale, as of 30th of June of 2023, it's almost 700,000. This is equal to the size of the users of a medium-sized bank in Hong Kong.
If you're talking about product matrix, digital economy or virtual bank is no different versus the traditional bank. Now, at the current stage, ZA Bank is operating on the same way as the traditional banks, which means that we are able to provide the services and products like deposits, loans, transfer, investment, insurance, et cetera. If you're talking about the operational efficiency and user experience of the bank, digital bank versus traditional bank is very much different. First of all, there is no offline points of service of digital bank. We provide the seven by 24 services through apps, which is going to reduce our fixed cost and also we're going to give more benefits to the users as a platform and provide more products and services with value for money.
Second of all, the digital bank is pretty much dependent on the server on the cloud, and we can actually use technology to realize the quick go live and iteration of new products and functions and can really satisfy the pain points and demands that are elevated year by year of the new generation of users. Also now we have becoming the commercial bank offering the basic services to the Web3 organizations. Also we are becoming actually the transactional and settlement bank, actually using the HashKey Exchange, for instance, and providing actually the convenience services. From a long run, we are able to better dependent on this particular facility to create a better user stickiness and also use technology to help us to realize a higher operational efficiency.
In the future, our goal is that we want to co-create with the users and also being the user demand driven and also become an integrated financial service platform that is driven by technology and providing more services and products available. Please be staying on tune. Thank you.
Thank you. Next question comes from Leon Qi from Daiwa. Please. Leon, please.
Thank you. This is Leon from Daiwa. I have two questions. The first is about the operating channel. We're very glad to see the economy of scale, which is growing. I would like to understand that, do you have a goal of the prem contribution from the proprietary channels? And what about the customer acquisition costs and also the other parameters like IGV, et cetera? Do you have any comparison, especially compare the proprietary channel with the channels like Douyin and Kuaishou?
Do you have any kind of a quantifiable analysis? Second question, which is about the consumer finance. In the first half of the year, when the combined ratio was quite stable, you had a quick growth. Also you can see that talking about the macroeconomy, the consumer credit loans are still quite weak. I would like to understand why you enjoy such a quick growth.
Thank you very much, Leon, for the questions. First, I'm going to answer the question about proprietary channels. In the first half of the year, the proprietary channel premium contribution continued to grow, accounting to about 30% of our GWP. First of all, in the first half of the year, we actually seized the opportunity of the traffic monetization and emphasizing more on investment on marketing and new acquisition of users and acquiring a lot of new users to finish their underwriting.
Also for the existing consumers, we're emphasizing more on the renewal business and cross-sales and up-sales. That's how we are able to reduce the overall customer acquisition cost. As I have already introduced that the artificial intelligence technology is able to help us to better lower down the operational costs in the long run. Also we are going to realize a better operational leverage. Talking about the operation of the same customer, the user acquisition cost of the proprietary channel is actually bigger because of more upfront investment on the insurance education and the mindset building among the consumers of the ZhongAn brand. However, if you are considering the cross-sales, that is cross-ecosystem, and also a very stable renewal rate, the long-term value contribution from users through our channels, the whole economic model is actually much better.
Next question is going to be answered by Wang Min.
Thank you, Leon, for the question. Last year, the consumer finance business was actually in a low base, and also the last year, we were having a kind of a shrinking of this business. Actually we restructured ourselves in terms of the consumer structure and the product structure, and also benefited by the economic recovery of the first half of the year. We focus on those small volume and discrete and short-term scenarios. We are seeing a lot of growth. Still, in the future, we need to still focus on these scenarios. Also from some of our performance, we can see that the appropriate and also the necessary credit loan as demand is still there.
At the current stage, the average duration is 10 months, and the user age band is between 30 and 40. This is a relatively young customer base with a stable economic income. In the future, we're going to be prudent in also thinking about our strategies and also empowered by the technology. We are going to maintain a higher quality growth as our fundamental strategy. The underlying asset quality is still quite robust, which is also higher and better than the industrial average. In the future, we are going to continue servicing even better the consumption demand of our users. We are going to have a very stringent control policy in place and develop on a prudent fashion.
Thank you.
Next question is Mao Jingjing from CICC, please.
Thank you for this opportunity. This is Mao Jingjing from CICC.
Congrats on the wonderful performance. I have two questions which are related to the new businesses. ZhongAn is always bringing with the surprises in those innovative areas. The first one is about the health insurance. For the zero deductible health insurance product is selling very well. I would like to understand whether it is going to be the major driving force, and apart from the million CNY medical insurance, any other potentials? Second question is about the innovative business of digital lifestyle ecosystem. Can you share with us more about this business? What types of insurance are able to actually develop on a much more potential basis or help to develop the ZhongAn business in the future?
Thank you for the questions. First, let me answer the first question.
For the health insurance, this is actually the most important ecosystem that we are focusing on for a very long time. We had maintained a very stable growth in the first half of the year. The number of users and premium per capita are increasing. I have already introduced, the blockbuster product, the million CNY medical insurance represented by Personal Clinic Policy, still maintain a very robust momentum. The growth rate of the million medical insurance product increased by 50% in the first half of the year with which the zero deductible version had an increase rate of 148%. You can see that we have seized the protection needs of the users and using technology to lower down the threshold. Apart from this series, we are also focusing on the next blockbuster product.
With the more inclusive pricing and more flexible product matrix, the critical illness insurance products realized a 268% growth rate in the first half of the year, GWP of nearly CNY 800 million. Combined with the Internet hospitals and healthcare, the outpatient and emergency insurance products experienced a growth rate of 53%. We cannot have this particular momentum of a new product development without our user insight and the user service. In the future, we are going to be optimistic about the overall healthcare industry's development in China. We believe that still there are huge unmet healthcare needs. We are able to proactively explore more opportunities for innovations. In terms of digital lifestyle ecosystem, which is your second question, I believe that the overall growth in the first half of the year was still fast.
Especially when the economy was recovered and when the pandemic control was over, compared with the same period last year, this year, we have also seized the opportunity of the dividend growth of short video platform and live streaming, et cetera. You can see that the travel business is still recovering and tourism as well. Innovative businesses are also trying to satisfy more needs of the users. Now we have the insurance, for instance, the pet insurance, broken screen insurance, drone insurance, et cetera. We activate foreign the blue ocean insurance types, such as home insurance and corporate insurance, and also in the smaller areas. We want to make more innovations in product design and pricing.
The growth rate of all types of insurance is very fast, like pet insurance, which has the growth rate of over 100% over the past two years, and also the UAV insurance and also the home property insurance and beauty and allergy insurance in the e-commerce scenario, and also some of the riding and hiking kind of insurance also maintain a notable growth rate. We set up the ZhongAn's open platform, which is also aimed at innovation and incredible market oriented to actively seek cooperation in more scenarios. We are actively laying out some of the opportunities and innovations in the area of green economy and sustainability. Overall speaking, innovative businesses is still having a very good profitability because of the unique product matrix and product feature and also the quick iterations and also the risk control strategies in place.
This is pretty much my answer. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Next, we are going to have the next question, Michelle Ma from Citi. Please.
Thank you for taking my question. I am from Citi. My name is Michelle. You have already mentioned some of your innovative businesses, but still I have another two. First one is about the pet insurance, because we have witnessed the pet insurance develop from scratch and also double the business in terms of the premium this year. I would like to get more information about the pet insurance. How do you think about the development now, and how do you expect the three to five years growth rate of the pet insurance? Also, comparing with the major competitor, for example, Continental, what is actually the major competitive landscape or competitive edge of your pet insurance product?
Could you actually share with us more on those questions? Second question is about the technology export. You shared a lot of colors on the overseas market. You mentioned that something about the digital economy of China, which is recovering very well. I am curious to know that what kinds of products are you exporting to China market? To be more specific, what are the names of the products, and what about the customer profile? How do you expect the growth rate of the next three years?
Thank you, Michelle, for the questions. Let me share with you the answers on the pet insurance. As I was already said that in 2023, the GWP of the pet insurance grew by almost 100%, and total premium transaction volume is reaching almost CNY 200 million.
In terms of market sale and market share, we are the leader, undoubtedly. Not only we are covering the pet insurance in the pet industry, but also we are covering the whole ecosystem of the pet industry. With multiple iterations, we are now covering the accidental health insurance of pets, and also the health management of the pets as well. In terms of the scenarios, we're also trying to develop new areas like the pet travel and food security and food safety. We work with the Royal Canin to actually also develop the chronic illness management insurance for the prescribed staples. In China, we really believe that this is a huge and also a new market and a blue ocean.
According to the industrial data, by 2026, the total size of the pet industry is going to reach CNY 537.6 billion, with which the healthcare related to pets is going to have a market scale of CNY 135.6 billion. The five-year CAGR between 2021 and 2026 will be 20%, and this is going to be the fastest. Last week, we had the Pet Fair Asia, and I was also there, it was really popular. You can see that the overall market of the pet industry is booming. Recently, we are going to publish the white paper for the pet insurance industry together with Ant Group. Sharing our insights and analysis towards the pet industry. Dear investors and analysts, you can actually contact our team to get further information about this white paper of the pet insurance industry.
Next question will be answered by Wang Min.
Thank you, Michelle, for the questions. This year, we have seized the opportunity of the recovery of the software and technology service industry. In the first half of the year, ZhongAn Technology has achieved the revenue of almost CNY 150 million, an increase of 36% on a year-on-year basis, coming back or exceeding the same period level of 2021. Last year, in the first half of last year, the newly signed contract value exceeded CNY 200 million, and the growth rate exceeded 100%. This is going to be really helpful for us to maintain a high and rapid growth momentum. This year, ZhongAn Technology has launched more and more products that are tailor-made for the customer's needs and deeply understanding the user's demand.
For instance, the new generation P&C insurance core system, MATE, has been used by multiple P&C companies in China. With the iterations of our products and driven by MATE as a core system, we are going to further optimize and also perfect the insurance product matrix and further cover more business scenarios and use cases and really provide the InsurTech products to customers in a more efficient and safer and a more intelligent way. In terms of the data infrastructure, we have been working with a lot of different life insurance companies to develop the collaboration on data middle platform establishment and intelligent governance. We are providing the capabilities and also the services like the data planning, the data governance, and data middle platform establishment. Based on our big data experience, we're also providing AI services to other life insurance companies.
Empowering the digital transformation of the life and P&C insurance companies. This year, China started to implement the IFRS 17. With this implementation of new accounting standards, this is bringing changes to the insurance industry, which is related to the contracts and risk assessment and the financial reports. ZhongAn Insurance, in the past, has been focusing on developing on the proprietary platform that is integrating everything that is compliant with the new accounting standard for over one and a half years. For the past years, we have been focusing on the accumulation of massive data and computing, and also facilitating ZhongAn in realizing the compliance requirements and auditing requirements in a higher efficient way. We have our proprietary R&D system of I-17, and this has been officially exported and also signed the official contracts with the customers.
You can see that this is actually the reflection of our achievements for years. ZhongAn Technology has been gaining the Excellence Awards of the PwC Financial Technology 50 Award, and this is also a very good recognition of our achievements and also efforts. In the future, we are going to actively explore the technology export of the financial industry and seize the opportunity and also further digitize and upgrade.
Due to the limit of time, we are going to have the very last question. Rick from Morgan Stanley. Rick, please.
Thank you, management. This is Rick from Morgan Stanley. I have two questions. The first one is about the combined ratio. As we can see that the combined ratio, 5.8%, so quite good. Comparing the same period, you had a great improvement in Q1.
Under this old solvency ratio, you had a pressure, but in Q2, pretty good and better. I would like to understand the kind of overall understanding of your underwriting profit and also the premium growth. Second is about profitability. I would like to understand that whether that guideline is pretty much confident to be realized, and whether the profitability is meeting your expectation. And also any impact to the ZhongAn International when there is a debt issuance of the first half.
All right. [Suning Capital. Thank you. I would like to actually realize or answer the question about the underlying profit and also the premium growth. In 2023, in the first half of the year, we had a lot of uncertainties internally and externally.
Against that scenario, however, we have implemented the high quality growth as a strategy for the premium growth and profit, we are meeting our expectations set up in the beginning of the year. For the second half of the year, we're going to laser focus on the high quality growth further and enhance or intensify management level and capabilities and using artificial intelligence to further reduce the overall cost and maintain the underlying profitability. Second question about international. ZhongAn International is including the ZA Bank and also the ZA Tech, that is focusing on technology export, and also the life business of Hong Kong. According to the financial data, ZA Bank, while increasing the revenue, the net loss volume and net loss ratio actually continued to be improved.
While talking about this particular announcement of the holding increased by standard link code, this is also showing the long-term view or positive view of the company to ZhongAn International. By the accounting standard, after this transaction, ZhongAn International is not going to be subsidiary of ZhongAn anymore. ZhongAn Online accounting standard to the ZhongAn International is going to be changed from the cost-oriented method to equity method. On 14th of August, we have already finished the settlement for the first batch, and also for details, you are able to contact the IR team for further information.
Due to a limit of time, we're going to close this announcement. On behalf of ZhongAn Online, I would like to thank all the participants of joining. Thank you very much. Thank you, everyone. You may disconnect.