Welcome, and thank you all for joining us for this fourth of our series of snapshot sessions to further introduce you to some of the leadership teams of our operations. Joining us today in Singapore is Mark FitzPatrick, Group Chief Executive, and Dennis Tan, the Chief Executive of the Singapore business and the Managing Director of the Strategic Business Group covering Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. We'll have about 30 minutes of discussion between Mark and Dennis, and then following that, about 30 minutes of questions and answers from yourselves in the normal way. The conference call host will then explain to you how to ask questions via the confe rence call in much the same way as we do after our results. Over to you, Mark.
Patrick, thank you, and good day, everyone. We're not going to give a full update on Q3 trading today, but I wanted to comment on some of our recent performance that you can see in public data. A feature of our performance in the first half was a strong performance in China, and I'm pleased to report that the industry data published in recent days shows us continuing to outperform this market in terms of GWP. This is driven by the strength of our proposition and in particular, our bancassurance channel, which sets up well for the future in that market. Elsewhere, we are focused on continuing to drive performance and operational delivery. We continue to design and tailor new products to better serve our customers and to support our agents and bank partners as the regions recover from COVID.
In Thailand, our new business premium growth continues to outperform the market. The Hong Kong industry statistics will be out later this month. More broadly, a feature of our interest was a good performance in our growth markets, and we have talked to you already this year about how we are driving that in the Philippines and Vietnam. Now, we saw 5% growth in APE and 16% growth in NBP in Singapore in the first half, outperforming the industry. The industry statistics here in Singapore, which were out last week, show that discrete third-party industry sales were down 13% year-on-year, with single premium sales down over 30%, partially offset by a 7% increase in regular premiums. Now, we remain comfortable with our Singapore business model and our performance compared to that of the industry that I've just outlined.
With that, on to my guest today, where I'm joined by Dennis Tan, CEO of our Singapore business and MD of the Strategic Business Group, which combines our Singapore, Thai, and Vietnamese operations. Dennis, maybe just to kick off, maybe you could give us a brief introduction of yourself and give a summary of your experience, please.
Thanks very much, Mark, and good evening to everyone. Great to be on this call. I have joined Prudential for about two years and nine months now, and it's actually the draw of really serving people, focusing on individuals and their families that really got me to Prudential. Prudential being such a respected global brand name, and especially here in Singapore, being a leading insurer with the largest agency force and of course, very strong banker relationships with banks. Prior to joining Prudential, I was with OCBC Bank. I was there for 10 years, and my last position over there was looking after the Consumer Financial Services Group, so Consumer Banking.
I've been in financial services all my career, all 26 years prior, previously in banking. This year, having come over to Prudential, I'm really, really pleased to be appointed into the GEC, the Group Executive Committee, and leading the Strategic Business Group comprising Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam. My role is actually to enhance greater collaboration between all the different teams, different countries, share knowledge, and increase efficiency between the three markets.
Great. Thank you, Dennis. What are you excited about in terms of the opportunities in Singapore? What is the significance of those opportunities in terms of the wider Prudential Group?
I think in the first half of this year, we have seen that Singapore is about 18% of APE, and importantly, 22% of NBP of the entire Prudential Group, with a healthy margin of 63%. From an IFRS segmental operating profits perspective, Singapore accounts for about 17%. That is something that is really, really meaningful. If you look at it from a Singapore perspective, we are excited about all the different opportunities in the health area as well as wealth, supported by really the rising lifespan and the rising affluence of the society here in this country. Let's talk a little bit about health. I think in Singapore here, definitely we have a very robust medical system, a public medical system. But at the same time, the demand for private medical plans remains really, really high.
That is actually our Shield business. The Shield business that sits on top of the national insurance scheme that is available to all citizens over here. That focus has really helped our overall business as we continue to work with private hospitals and allowing customers access to better comfort in better class wards in the hospital system. Our healthcare portfolio grew more than 90% over the past five years in terms of premiums. Customers definitely have continued to grow with us through the past many years, and the opportunity continues to keep growing. As Singaporeans continue to live longer, the demand for healthcare services will increase. Overall health protection gap is still at SGD 23 billion in Singapore, and this measures the shortfall in finances to fund health expenditure. With that, let me move on very quickly to wealth.
I think wealth is another key pillar that we have been building up on, and with rising lifespan, it's important that people continue. People definitely have the need to continue to consume wealth management services. People living up to 85 years old, we need to continue to make sure that they do not outlive their savings. That's something that's very important. A survey that we have done recently shows that two out of three Singaporeans here agree that they need to invest a lot more of their savings to fund a longer life, and therefore that opportunity continues to be great for all of us here to really extend retirement planning needs and helping the customers with that.
Within the Group, as a MNC, we have extensive product knowledge, expertise across the globe for use in the many markets, and we can continue to harness all of that in solutions for our customers. Finally, maybe I can just talk a little bit about SME.
The SME segment is really, really huge here in Singapore. There are about 300,000 SMEs, and that makes up about 99%, almost all of the enterprises here locally. Importantly, these SMEs employ a total of 2.4 million employees. Having made inroads into the SME segment for us over the past few years, we feel that we can continue to grow this and achieve double-digit growth, just like what we have been doing for the recent years. We serve now close to about 3,000 SMEs. Through that, they have a total of about 200,000 employees, and we continue to work through these customers to really serve them and convert these to individual lives for us. That will be something that's really, really meaningful to our entire enterprise business.
Dennis, the three key components then are health. There's a key wealth component and then the SME in terms of future growth. What are your priorities for the business, given all those opportunities?
Great question, Mark. I think clearly with me joining in the last 2.5 years is really focusing on strengthening the relationship with our distributors. One key area definitely is engagement and strengthening our approach through working with the agency force. At the same time, it's also strengthening the relationship that we have with the two bank partners that we have, right? A strong local bank here, UOB Bank, right? One of the three largest local banks over here, and another internationally known bank, Standard Chartered Bank. Clearly our priorities have been really engaging our distributors. In terms of our segments, we continue to work with the high net worth customer space as well as the affluent.
We do that through working with the bank partners, because in the banking system, these customer segmentations are fairly clearly defined, being served through the bank network, the branch network that they have, and different relationship managers or different segmental specialists that they have serving the customers' needs. Partnering them definitely is something that we have been doing, and we'll continue to do that to build our inroads into the health and the wealth management space here. The other thing actually is also the broader base customers that we serve across our entire business. That needs to continue to be done digitally and using health offerings as a key focal area, which we have been doing and will continue to augment that. Finally, emerging but very interesting Group is actually the younger customers.
These young customers come in and this is actually building the business for the next generation. How do we serve the needs of these young customers? Many of them over time will get more affluent. In order for us to serve them, things like investment-linked proposition, right, thematic products that we have that's wrapped around together with ESG focus. These are all clear needs that's articulated by the customer segment and something that we are very happy to continue working with them and serving their needs.
Great. Thank you. Dennis, if we can look, we've had some folk understandably say how are you continuing to drive growth in what is often seen as a relatively mature market compared with one of your other markets, like Vietnam, where there's just you know far less mature. Is there anything in terms of product initiatives and the like that you're exploring to try and be able to ensure that you can maintain the great growth that you've had so far?
Clearly, Singapore being a developed market, even though it's a mature market, there continues to be lots of opportunities. As I kind of briefly mentioned earlier, even you look at the protection gap that we have, it's a whopping SGD 23 billion. While it is a maturing market, it is a mature market, there continues to be pockets of customers that we should continue to serve them. With the rising affluence, and Singapore sitting in this part of the world being a wealth management hub, and with fund flows coming over to this country, we continue to see that rising affluence of people over here, as well as the different differing needs that they have over their lifespan. Retirement solutions is something that we've been focusing on, and that's something that's really interesting.
All these come in a combination of both single premium as well as regular premium options. I think the important and interesting thing is that we make sure that we customize these for our customers. The payout start age, as well as the payout period. These are all very, very modular, and we allow this flexibility for our customers. Importantly, as Singaporeans continue to live longer, we're going to make sure that they are able to save sufficiently for their retirement. For the younger customers, we have innovative plans, such as plans that will marry both protection and wealth accumulation and serving these two needs together. For these customers, affordability through our research, affordability is the most important thing.
We have premiums as low as SGD 90 per month for a decent coverage of SGD 200,000 for life and a critical illness cover. The other thing on top of affordability that's expressed to us is actually flexibility. Customers want flexibility in their plans. What we have is actually for them to be able to extend their protection against critical illness. They can actually increase coverage amounts at important life stages or life events over time. If they need funds, they can make withdrawals to meet their financial obligations, and also at times to do investment top-ups. All these options are available to the customers, so very, very flexible. Finally, I kind of mentioned Shield business earlier.
We are delighted to be the market leader here for the Shield business with a market share of about 31%. These health plans continue to complement the national medical coverage plans, the foundational plans that's available to everyone. Our incremental plans allow access to private hospitals of higher class wards. That is something that again gives a lot of comfort to many of our affluent customers. We have been here in Singapore recognized to be an innovator in the health solutions with Shield as one example. One example that I can cite is actually the launch of claims-based pricing. This was launched in 2017, five years ago.
How this works is actually rewarding customers who stay healthy, customers who do not claim or claim quite a little quantum within the year.
Mm-hmm.
These customers will actually enjoy a reward in terms of a premium discount. At the same time, we also have what we call through PRUPanel Connect, which is a system that we have and relationships with many of our private hospitals that will give a lot more differentiated offers offering to our customers who use the services in these locations.
Very good. Dennis, can we pivot now, and can we talk to one of our key differentiators, which is our core strength of agency? Where I think we have the largest tied agency force in Singapore. Could you provide a bit more color on the scale and quality of our agents and how you're building on this?
We are really delighted to have the largest tied agency force in the Singapore market. In specific, we have more than 5,000 agents, and this is arguably one of the most productive agency force in the country. Our agency business has contributed about 42% of APE in the first half of this year. The agency force is actually a force to reckon with in terms of them continuing to go out there to deliver very high health and protection business generation. One thing I'm really thankful to the agency force and see really huge progress in the past couple of years is actually through the pandemic situation. The entire agency force was really nimble, and they really adapted to new ways of engagement and new ways of serving customers.
I recall in second quarter of 2020 when the lockdown was happening. We were the first insurer here in Singapore to really launch and develop video conferencing and the e-signature tool that importantly allows the agency force to provide advisory services and sales to be done online without them actually physically seeing the customers. That was really important during that period. That has not stopped actually in the past two years and now in Singapore, whereby we are reopening up and living endemically with COVID. While people can meet up, you know, face-to-face and all that, the beauty is that we continue to see these remote sales through video conferencing at 30%, 40%, 50% of each month's business, depending on which month it is. That is really something that is fantastic because it saves productivity.
Mm-hmm.
The agents do not need to keep traveling out to meet customers, they can do that online. At the same time, existing customers, repeat customers who say, "Hey, I already know you. I just want to kind of add on this simple policy." They can do that remotely. Again, something that's very convenient to customers as well. That's something that I'm really, really thankful and happy to see that really happening in our agency force. The other key thing to share, Mark, is actually our of the more than 5,000, we have more than 1,000 of them who are MDRT qualified, so Million Dollar Round Table. I think just to kind of share that the MDRT concept is not just about sales.
Of course, sales is a key indicator, but it's also the quality and the professionalism in terms of them really being able to serve so many customers. That's something that we're really proud of. One final thing actually to, just to share also is actually the training, learning, and development of our very nimble agency force. Actually, what we have is actually now Singapore's first and only agency force, whereby all our agents are what we call IBF Level 1 qualified. In Singapore, we have this Institute of Banking and Finance classification, whereby now all of our agents have gone through in the last 18 months, certified in really financial needs analysis and plan construction.
That's something that we don't quite see in other peer forces, but something that we are really proud of, whereby our people have invested time in upgrading themselves and in terms of learning so that they can be more professional in serving the public and serving our customers.
That sounds like a huge investment from the agents and showing their level of commitment in terms of the training and the hours that they're putting in, 'cause I seem to recall somewhere that, you know, up to 60 hours per agent invested in achieving this level of certification.
Absolutely.
Dennis, if we pivot now to bancassurance. Our other distribution channel. Useful just to get a sense in terms of current positioning and how we're enhancing our capabilities around that, please.
We are equally strong in bancassurance here in Singapore. What we are delighted is that we continuously hold the top three position by market share with our two strategic bank partners. UOB Bank, right? One of the strong local banks, as well as SCB, right? Standard Chartered Bank, the largest foreign bank here in Singapore. Together, they allow us access to over more than 2 million customers here in Singapore. The bancassurance relationship that we have, we continue to really work with them in serving their customers and focusing on customer segmentation. One example is really focusing on the affluent and the high-net-worth space. With Singapore continuously being recognized as a wealth center, working with these banks, serving their customer needs, that continues to allow us to really build the business really strongly.
The other thing is actually working with these two banks. They have a lot of what we call digital natives. They are customers who are really onto their platforms, their mobile platforms, their internet banking platforms. They really have more than 1.6 million of these customers in the two banks combined. Finally, from a segment perspective, they have what they call the business banking segments, i.e. customers who are SMEs or what we deem as commercial banking customers. These are also huge opportunities for us to closely collaborate with them to really penetrate that and offer our solutions, our enterprise business solutions, to help all of their employees in these companies.
One of the examples that I'll kind of quote is actually us also working with the two banks in their mobile banking platform, and we have been supplying products, bite-sized products as well, SME products that are actually relevant to all these digital natives in these platforms to really engage them directly so that they can actually convert either as leads to us or they can come in and purchase products online at the tip of the finger, which is very convenient for them.
Dennis, having focused now a little bit on distribution, I'm going to change yet again. Looking at products. We've got quite a balanced product mix in terms of health and protection. You were talking about Shield earlier and also savings. How do rising interest rates impact your business?
I think the important thing from my perspective is actually having a very well-balanced portfolio. Well-balanced portfolio of products that cuts across protection, the link business, as well as participating savings endowment type product. We are well placed to serve our customers' needs across all the range of needs that they have. This will happen once we have a balanced portfolio because that will help them across all interest rates and economic cycles. With, of course, in the recent period, heightened volatility in the capital markets, our solutions remain very attractive, given the more stable long-term returns that we can generate for our customers. Specifically for health solutions, well, health solutions are always in demand, right? Especially I think in this period now that is post-pandemic.
One thing that really customers have learned is actually, hey, for the last two years, the importance of them sitting down to review the protection needs of themselves and their family. I think that the health solutions continue to be a mainstay of our business. Our customers are also more aware of the different needs that they have and having access to quality healthcare is important. Overall, with all this focus on protection and the healthcare business and the health portfolio, the impact to our overall business is going to be very marginal because of that balanced approach that we take from a portfolio perspective.
Well, of course, we are, right, just like many others out there, we are not immune to changes in interest rates, but we are also not unduly challenged because of that balanced approach. Overall, I'm very confident of our delivery and of this part of the interest rate cycle. More importantly, movements in interest rates, if carefully managed, actually could present favorable conditions to generate better returns as well for our customers over the long term.
Earlier on you spoke about the customer segmentation level, focusing on high-net-worth, on the affluent and on the SME market. Given your focus on those three, how should one think about the longer term margin outlook?
I'm very confident of the longer term profitability and the outlook. We have a high H&P composition in our business, and this tends to generate higher margins for us. Shield, again, as an example, over the past five years. In fact, five years back, we were the first and only insurer that turned profitable for the Shield business in this market. It is a competitive market. Despite all the changes in the recent years, we continue to be able to generate that profitability while serving customers and having affordable and decent premiums for the customer base. One of the things that I remember clearly is our ability to really launch what we call claims-based pricing.
That really helped the overall management of our portfolio, keeping premium rates really more affordable and competitive, but at the same time managing our claims costs. Overall here, as we focus on high net worth, yes, if you look at it from a product mix perspective, we do have a slightly higher mix of single premium products, perhaps relative to other countries or other markets. That said, the single premium solutions that we have been offering is of high quality. Whenever I say high quality, what I mean by that is actually attractive and stable and high margins. These offering of single premium are not the typical, very short term, endowment products that doesn't generate very much, returns.
That is something that is really, really good, and we are focusing on really looking at decent high quality products, high quality single premium products that we continue to bring to the market. Overall, cross-selling has been healthy as well.
Mm-hmm.
Customers on the average have about 2.8 Prudential policies with us. That's something that we're very happy about. Talking about margins, maybe if I can shift over to SMEs. For the SME business that we do, we tend to avoid the broker-driven kind of model. We want to build relationship directly with our clients, with the companies, with the SMEs that we serve. Through that, we are able to continue to build relationship, understand them a lot better, understand their needs better, and use digital delivery to serve them. One key example is actually what we call Business@Pulse.
Using the Business@Pulse, a solution that will allow us to these employees of the SMEs and the companies to really see the policy information, and importantly, use that as a simple tool to submit their claims. That's something that we'll continuously invest in to make the journey and the proposition strong for the SMEs that we serve.
Great. Dennis, in your answers a moment ago, you mentioned digital. Now, you and I were at the Singapore FinTech Festival like a couple of weeks ago, and we were talking about technology and how that's changing the business. How are you looking to use digital to grow and enable the business?
Clearly, in this day and age, technology definitely is front and center of many things that many companies do. Here in Prudential and Prudential Singapore's business, technology is a key enabler in how we serve our customers and importantly, enable our agency force. When we talk about technology and digital, it's kind of two-pronged. One is digitizing directly to the consumers, but at the same time it's also enhancing digital directly to our agency force. That is really core to our strategy. Maybe I can just use a couple of examples to share what we've been doing on digital. Let's look at it from a customer perspective, right? I can talk about onboarding, and I can talk about servicing them as well.
Onboarding of new clients and how we use digital is actually one example is our instant underwriting. There is an instant underwriting digital engine behind, whereby we underwrite more than 40 products through this process, and we can deliver a decision literally instantly. With that, today, actually three out of four of our policies are underwritten this way. Three out of four, 75%.
In that sense, it's automated. We only need a reviewer to really look at the other one out of four. This is actually helping productivity and turnaround time and really serving customers faster. That's helping customers from an onboarding perspective when they are about to take on an insurance product. In terms of servicing them, we have different ways that we have been, you know, using leveraging digital to serve them better. One example is actually using the AI talk bot, and we launched that at the start of this year. What happens is that we have been training the talk bot to really understand the client's query, right? And to respond.
Not just respond, but respond with empathy and respond with Singlish, right? The way we speak English in Singapore. That's really making localizing that. With that, we have been pushing that out. In short, we use that for Shield retention calls. In short, all these calls are made, actually it's made by the robot, by the talk bot, and it performs no different from in the past where we had people manually actually making those calls out. That's actually really successful, and that's all the calls have been as successful as all the manual calls made up by people. Finally, back to what I kind of talked about briefly again, earlier on Pulse.
Business@Pulse, that is really something that we'll continuously leverage and build a lot more functionality as we serve our enterprise business clients. Right? Whether they can see more of their insurance coverage, policy information, submit claims or make all the other kind of a Group coverage related kind of activities or servicing that they need, everything in just one platform. That's something that we continuously invest in our business to be able to serve our customers.
Thank you. Dennis, we've gone through a quick exposé of the business in Singapore in terms of the market, in terms of the products, in terms of the segments, in terms of the channel, and now in terms of digital. When you bring that all together, the question that everybody's going to have is: What does that mean for the prospects for Singapore for the balance of this year?
For the first half of this year, as we kind of shared earlier, our APE was up 5% and NBP up 16%. To me, I think what we have seen is actually the success of our multi-channel approach. The multi-channel approach and that model gives us business resilience. From a performance perspective, we continue to see and expect a smooth flight path as a result of that. Again, compared to our peers, yes, of course, there are volatilities, and we continue to see headwinds in the short term, but I'm confident, very confident of the outlook of the Singapore market, given the long-term structural trends that we are seeing and our strong leadership position.
We've been tracking that, right, definitely over the past many, many years, and we continue to see and value the strength that we bring to the table as we continue to serve our customers. In Singapore, we continue to take market leadership position in many things that we have been known for, right, in the local market here. We talked about Shield earlier, so that's something that we are very proud of, and we continue to see us maintaining that. The other thing is actually having the largest tied agency force here and the productivity in also maintaining the regular premium sales trend that we continue to see over time. These are all successes that we have, and we'll continue to build on that.
Importantly, we also discussed earlier a little bit about health, and we talked about wealth. Having these two-prong engines firing away, that will continue to help us really serve our customers and help them with their aspirations. Undergird all of that is actually the approach of digital and digital at the core of our growth. Having all of that to really serve the needs of our customers. I believe that all these elements coming together, the outlook definitely is very, very positive.
Excellent. Very good. All right, Dennis, thank you very, very much indeed for those answers. We're now going to change to the second part of today's session, which is open up for the Q&A. Thank you very much indeed.
Jordan, thank you. Over to you to brief the callers, please.
Thank you. As a reminder, if you'd like to register an audio question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you change your mind, please press star followed by two, and please ensure you're unmuted when speaking. For those of you connected via the webcast, you can submit questions via the questions tab. We have a question registered from Michael Chang of CGS-CIMB Securities. Michael, please go ahead.
Hi, this is Michael Chang from CGS-CIMB Securities. I've got two questions. The first question was, basically what Dennis was saying, new business profits up 16%, APE is up 5%. That does imply significant margin expansion. It does appear, however, looking at the last slide, that bank insurance has been the fastest growing segment. Typically there is a perception bank insurance is lower margin compared to the agent channel. Maybe you can elaborate a bit more on what's materially changed in the product mix over the last one year in particular, such as the margins increase also significantly. Second, question I have is, in terms of the agent channel, very impressive stats on the agent numbers in terms of, the market share as well as the proportion that is MDRT.
Could I get some sense as to, as Singapore adapts to live with COVID, what kind of growth rates are we talking about for just the agent channel in particular, both in terms of APE as well as NBP? Thank you.
Thank you very much, Michael, for the two questions. For the first question in terms of, bancassurance and, you know, the product mix and, you know, perhaps, would there be any lower margin coming from, this channel? Because typically, you know, some markets or generally people may think that, "Hey, for bancassurance relationship, those margins tend to be a little bit more, restricted." Clearly not, right, for our in our case, and like what I kind of, was alluding to earlier. The single premium products that we have been, taking to market is actually those that we craft out to really serve the customer's needs, be it retirement needs or their legacy planning needs. These are all carefully curated products.
Though the payment mode is single premium, these are not the low quality, low margin single premium products. That's my first point. Second one is like what I alluded to earlier as well. If you look at the 2021 business that the numbers that we have shown, we did not write any of what we call a tranche product in 2021. None of the single premium low margin short-term endowments that you typically see perhaps provided by other players out in the market. This, while it's increasing single premium contribution from the banking channel, these are all high quality, high margin single premium products. That's to your first question. Second question in terms of agency channel.
Yes, agency channel continues to grow really well, and we have seen them being so resilient, especially in the past two years, given the COVID situation. They have adapted really well. The relationship with clients continue to be rock solid, really, really strong. In fact, many of our agents, right, they have been serving customers. It's multi-generational, so it's not just, you know, one generation, but it's really multi-generational. The relationship with them is really, really fantastic.
I expect and continue to see growth opportunities for our agency force, and that will come not just in terms of growing the number of agents that we have and which we do year on year, but at the same time in terms of growing the productivity and also how do we continuously equip them with tools, equip them with different things so that they can do their daily work more efficiently. As they do that, the productivity will come by as well. One clear example is what I talked about earlier of the remote conferencing video selling tool that we have, which now two years after the lockdown, it is mainstay now. The agency force continues to use that, and that's something that is helping the productivity and the customer engagement a lot more.
Thank you. Thanks a lot.
Jordan, I think I'll go to the web question.
Our next question.
Sorry, Jordan. I'll go to the web question next. It's from Greig at KBW. Not dissimilar line of questioning as we just had there. The big shift over the medium term towards H&P in Singapore that you talked about, sort of going back more years than the five years in particular, do you think that this has further to go? Is this a scope for growth in this particular H&P segment? He's asked on the agent numbers similar to Michael's question, you know, what's the sort of current growth rate and recruitment cycle for agent numbers? The importance of digital leads in terms of sales, is this the key metric that you're chasing?
Very much, Greig, for those three questions. First question, clearly, definitely the opportunity for H&P continues to be great. The gap that we see here, the protection gap, is literally SGD 23 billion. Lots more opportunities for us to tap into that space. As the lifespan of people here continue to increase and as the consumption of healthcare needs continues to be strong, I see a huge opportunity for us to tap from that. Shield is but just one of the approach. There are many other protection, critical illness, health-related policies that we can bring forth to the customer base, so therefore helping them with their needs and plugging that H&P gap in the marketplace. Second question.
Yeah, I think it was quite similar to the first one as well earlier. Agency, we continue to recruit, so that's something that we have not let down. We have not slowed down in the past two years. This year definitely and going to next, we continuously look at opportunities to recruit and train our agency force. One of the key things that we talked about earlier is actually the professionalizing of our entire agency force. Because we were able to do that, I think that clearly sets us apart, that we are using that as a differentiator for people to really come and join our agencies, to be able to learn, develop their skills, and therefore go out there more confidently, more professionally to be able to serve customers.
We will definitely continue to recruit and have that incremental plus year-on-year. Finally, leads, your question on leads. This is something that's really interesting and I didn't have time to talk about that earlier. When we talk about digital, it's also harnessing digital and in this digitally led world now to generate leads and to have relationships with what we call platform companies or different kind of providers of leads. For example, food delivery. In the past, right, we don't quite talk about that in many years back. With the pandemic, I think there's a lot more focus and people are definitely more comfortable with that.
We work with companies like that and use that to pump it into Pulse, whereby these are all leads generated for the agency force to successfully convert into individual lives. That's something that we have started doing and will definitely accelerate and do a lot more in the coming years.
Thanks back to you, Jordan.
We have a question registered on the phone lines from Mindy Gao of CLSA. Mindy, please go ahead.
Thank you for taking my question. This is Mindy from CLSA, and I got two questions. As Dennis just mentioned, he's very confident on the NBP growth just now, and I just have a follow-up question on that, regarding the expected long-term NBP growth outlook for Singapore and the relevant drivers of that growth. Then my second question would be, can you please provide more colors on the local competitiveness landscape and what really differentiate Prudential? Thank you.
Sorry, Mindy, could you repeat the second question again?
Local competitiveness and what distinguishes us from our competition.
Thank you. Thank you, Mindy, for the two questions.
Yes.
Go ahead, Mindy.
My second question would be, the local competitive landscape and what really differentiate Prudential?
Thank you very much, Mindy, for the two questions. NBP, clearly, yes, we have come from a regime and the results of a very robust and very good growth that we have seen. It is our desire to want to continue to maintain that. Importantly, it's always about channel mix, product mix, right, over time. The plans clearly as you have heard earlier, as we continue to execute, is with that really rigor and focus on really good quality, decent, good quality margin products that we bring to the as we continue to serve the customers as well as bringing products to the marketplace.
That's something that we are very conscious of and we are continuously make sure that, it's definitely something that we will want to continue to maintain to the best of our ability. In terms of a local competitiveness, obviously it is a competitive market, right? Given that Singapore market is a mature market. We have had a strong 90-year history over here, and we are a known brand name. We are a business that has got the probably the most diversified channel in that sense, whereby agency force, not only do we have the agents more than 5,000, we are the largest type agency force here in the country. Something that we are really delighted to continue to support and work with the agents. At the same time, for the partnership part, right?
We have two very strong banks that we work with, not just one, but two. That sets us apart because in many of the peer insurers that's competing here in the marketplace, they tend to only work with one. That's something else that we are differentiating compared to the other players out there. Of course, lastly, we talked about digital earlier. That's something that be it through Pulse or be it through other digital capabilities that we have to enable our distributors, be it the bank partners or the agency force. We continuously invest in all these capability building with a view of serving the customers well, serving the customer and bringing convenience, speed, right, relevance to them at the right time. These actually investments will then garner a lot more of a confidence and support by our distributors.
That's something that we are very, really happy about. Finally, obviously on health, right? That's another key area that we are differentiating. Like I shared earlier in terms of Shield, and it's not just about Shield, but it's what else do we do with that Shield business, be it claims-based pricing, be it PRUPanel Connect network of private hospitals that we work with. These are all innovative ideas that we constantly bring to the table, and that sharpens our proposition and that differentiates us from peers.
Okay. We have two more questions on the web. First one is from Thomas Wang of Goldman Sachs. Can you give us a bit more color on the sort of alternative saving vehicles that you are competing with in the high net worth and the affluent market? And if rates remain high, how attractive are the saving products that you've sold in the last few years, given that they were sold in a low yield environment? That's the first one. That also ties into a question that Dominic O'Mahony from Exane asked about whether there are any particular features of the Singapore market when it comes to lapse risk, and the market risks that you're taking on the balance sheet.
Whether there's any biometric risks in the market as a result of the longevity that you've talked about, mortality, morbidity, and how is this different from the rest of the Group? Maybe that's quite a difficult question to ask yourself, but maybe we can comment on it further. Those are the two I've had at the moment.
Thank you very much, Thomas, for the question. Clearly, we have been focusing on savings, more importantly, wealth. Right? Wealth as the category. Savings is but only one component of that. Over there we have investment-linked propositions or hybrid propositions to bring out to the customer base. Clearly, one of the key things that we have been doing for savings is not just a pure savings product. Right? Those pure, straight, simple, short-term endowment that I talked about earlier, that's something that we have kind of been walking away from, even while the market continues to do that. What we have actually come up with is actually different propositions with different packaging, actually, to beef up the proposition for customers like I talked about earlier.
Helping you with wealth accumulation, which is more savings, but at the same time with some protection element in there. Putting these two together will then help bring out better proposition to the customers, but at the same time, guarding our books and making sure that the margins are healthy. It's not just all these simple, pure, straight-up savings that would then potentially be quite potentially go through different volatility as we go through different interest rate cycles. That's the first question. Second one, in terms of lapse risk, that's something that I'm not worried about. It doesn't keep me up at night. I think here we definitely have a very solid, good quality book that we see, and not just now, but through the passage of time.
We have always had very good persistency in the entire business. That's something that we will continuously work to really strengthen the relationship with the customers, and that's something that, like I mentioned, doesn't keep me awake at night.
Dominic had those other two questions, which is on the, you've got longevity in Singapore, does that lead to a biometric risk? Does it make it difficult to underwrite, for example, when you've got that risk? Is it unique to Singapore?
That's something that we continuously, of course, look at different things to bring to the market, right? One of the things actually as we look at longevity is actually, for example, our enterprise business for all of our Group policies. We actually cover our customers up to 100 years old, and we don't see that as a huge risk for us. That's something that as we face the reality of this rising lifespan of people, we want to really support them in that. As we look at helping customers to save for 100, live to 100, right? I think that is important. It's not just narrative, but it's something that we really put into our policies.
That's why really being one of the first or the unique ones to really cover our customers up to 100 years old. I do not personally see any of this systemic risk, and we really have been doing this in the recent period, recent years.
You've got a par business here, a with-profits business, so presumably on the credit side, risk exposures, which is Dominic's final part of his question, would it be safe to say that you've got some levels of protection inherent in the business model that you're running here?
Clearly, of course, there will be from that perspective, but like I mentioned earlier as well, depending on how you approach and how you price the product, I think clearly there are opportunities. Of course, we look at interest rate cycles, it goes up through different ups and downs. If carefully managed, we definitely can look at potentially generating healthy returns for the customers. From a par book perspective, I think that equally applies.
I had a further one from Abid at Panmure talking about the ability to use the digital channel to complement the other channels as opposed to cannibalizing obviously your strong position in agency. How do you approach the risk of cannibalization?
Thanks very much, Abid, for the question. For the digital part, like I kind of mentioned earlier, it's not just digitizing direct to the consumers, but it's also digitizing direct to our distributors. Important thing is not to make the distributors feel as if we're using digital to disenfranchise them or to kind of cut them away. Importantly, harnessing digital to allow them to work better with the clients. One of the key tests that we have done in the recent period is actually, you know, is this whole notion of do you do direct to consumer or is it perhaps another way, which is what we have been doing, is an assisted D2C. It's not just a pure direct to consumer D2C, but it's an assisted D2C.
That means we leverage and we harness the power of human, of our large agency force to be able to embrace and work with the digital solutions that we have. The whole experience is not just about going direct, but how do we involve them, and through that, we see a lot more synergy and see a lot more productivity, and being able to serve customers and get a lot more tangible results than a pure D2C.
I think one of the things that we were nervous about, candidly, in the run-up to or before COVID was, as we were starting to roll out our digital strategy, was whether agents would bristle at the use of a digital channel. What we found through COVID and through the use of leads, which Dennis referred to earlier on, actually it's given rise to a lot greater acceptance. Through video technology and the like, it's also supported the efficiency of agents 'cause they're, I mean, it doesn't take long to get from one side of Singapore to another, but more generally across the Group, it's improved the productivity of agents significantly. Thank you.
Back to you, Jordan, maybe to remind people as to how they can ask further questions.
Of course. As a reminder, if you'd like to register an audio question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. For those connecting via the webcast, you can type your question in the questions tab. We have a follow-up question from Michael Chang. Michael, the line is yours.
Yes. Hi, sorry, just two follow-up questions. Firstly, insofar as Singapore is seen as a hub for wealth, could you perhaps shed some light? Over the last couple of years, it does seem that Singapore has attracted a fair bit of wealth from across the region. Could you maybe give some indication as to what proportion of your new business profits might come from tapping this wealth coming from offshore versus actual wealth from onshore? Secondly, insofar as Prudential is unique in that it has two bancassurance partners, is there any difference in terms of customer segmentation, in terms of product mix? The reason why I ask that is that there is a perception in Singapore that UOB is more of a mass-market bank because of its huge branch network.
Insofar as Standard Chartered is seen as a more foreign bank, maybe it's got a more high-end customer base. Kinda understand if there's a difference in terms of the product suite that you offer to these two partners in Singapore. Thanks.
Thank you very much, Michael, for the two questions. First question on Singapore as a hub, as a wealth hub, and your question in terms of whether or not we're seeing a lot more of the offshore opportunities that they were tapping over here. Well, largely insurance is a very domestically focused kind of proposition and that's what we have been doing here. Whether or not there could be potential fund flows coming in to Singapore, typically they will kind of land with the banks first as opposed to with the insurer directly. In that sense, we continue, of course, to support our banking partners. To go back to your question earlier, predominantly all of our business is all written onshore. It's domestically driven here.
The second question in terms of the bancassurance and herein lies the interesting thing that we are seeing, right? Because we have two very strategic bank partners that we work with are locally here in Singapore. Of course, these two there will be a slight difference. The local bank clearly will have a lot more branches in that sense. The foreign bank typically will have a segmentation that focuses a lot more on affluent and the high net worth segment. Working with these two banks and complementing actually that brings a lot of value to us as we push out our products to be able to serve these. Of course there will be some clients or profile that could be an overlap.
Clearly like what you talked about, Michael, yes, there is that kind of perception out there, but it is largely also quite true because the local bank, typically in any country, will have a lot more of a branch footprint as compared to a foreign name bank. So we are happy to continue to partner with them and to provide the product solutions to meet all the needs of their various customer segments.
Jordan, I've got one last question on the web, which actually ties into the answer that Dennis has just given. Have you seen a particular interest from mainland Chinese customers in coming to Singapore to use it as a wealth market?
Thank you very much for the question. Clearly, the growth of the North Asian business is something that we observe from an industry, even from a banking industry standpoint. That's something that we've been seeing. In many of the banks, one of the key growth desk, right? Because they organize their business into different desks. One of it is actually the North Asia desk. Clearly, that has been rising over the past few years, even before the COVID situation. That's something that the banks have been very focused on. Again, for us as an insurer, as a product manufacturer and supplier, we continue to partner with our banks to serve all of their customer segments. That whether it comes from North Asia or other countries in the region.
Singapore being again one of the key wealth management hubs here in this part of the world, we are happy to continue to work with our distributors to be able to provide their customers and to serve their various needs.
Okay, we've got three minutes left, Jordan, just back to you, and we'll close off.
Thank you. This concludes today's call. Thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.