Africa-Press – Tanzania. THE inclusion of banks and financial institutions in the Bancassurance business has provided significant opportunities for both the banking and insurance sectors in the country.
According to the Tanzania Insurance Regulatory Authority (TIRA) and the Bank of Tanzania (BoT) the introduction of bancassurance scheme aimed to ensure that many more Tanzanians have access to insurance products and services.
About 13 out of more than 50 commercial banks in the country have already been granted licenses to operate the bancassurance scheme.
The banks move to step out of its core banking services and partnering with insurance firms will make insurance industry register new milestone thus pushing up insurance penetration in the country.
Tanzania has the lowest insurance penetration in East Africa, which stands at less than 1 per cent. There is increased competition among the banks in seeking to attract new customers to grab insurance products and services.
The NMB Bank Plc, which is the largest lender in the country, has been taking advantage of this opportunity and in order to accrue more benefits it recently embarked on training its personnel to acquire skills on insurance business.
The top lender was the first bank to be licensed by TIRA and formally started offering bancassurance services in February this year.
Commending NMB for staff training investment, the TIRA Commissioner of Insurance Dr Mussa Juma noted that the bank’s initiative will help the country to have the professionals it needs to increase insurance penetration and enhance services availability.
“The insurance law requires every insurance service provider, be it a bank or a broker, to train people working for them. I commend NMB for considering that and TIRA as regulator of the industry will ensure you get the support you need to ensure you serve many Tanzanians,” Dr Juma note in his speech to open the two-day seminar.
“NMB entry into bancassurance business is a major development for us in the sector since it has already started paying dividends in terms of increasing service providers and many people being insured through the bank’s extensive branch network in both Mainland Tanzania and Zanzibar,” he added.
Dr Juma said the government wants insurance service providers, including banks, to invest more in ensuring their risk management personnel acquire professional qualifications in the business.
He said training the bank’s personnel on insurance business is a worthy investment whose returns will deliver value across the board in the industry.
Appealing for knowledge sharing among sectoral stakeholders, he said beneficiaries will not only be the trained staff but also their employers and the whole country at large.
Professionally the qualified employees will help address inherent shortcomings currently haunting the sector notably limited uptake of insurance and lack of products tailor-made to cater for the specific needs of the local market.
He pointed out another benefit to be accrued from such investments will be to have enough people with the requisite skills to better serve Tanzanians.
Ultimately, the insurance fraternity will play a key role in dealing with the prevailing sectoral glitch of the industry not contributing adequately to economic growth and overall national development.
Like in most African markets, the contribution of insurance to national output (GDP) has for many years remained at less than one per cent.
Dr Juma called on insurance companies, banks doing bancassurance, brokers and other stakeholders in the business to ensure their people are certified by professional bodies.
He said training insurance teams is vital in making them innovative to devise products addressing national realities.
The bank’s Chief Human Resources Officer Emmanuel Akoonay said the training investment has paid off in many ways, including increasing accessibility to services.
He said the goal of introducing NMB Bancassurance was to help serve sidelined people through the bank’s network of more than 225 branches and over 8,000 agents.
“Since the launching of the service, more than 250 employees have been trained. This has boosted service provision leading to an average of more than 30,000 people being insured every month through NMB,” Akoonay explained.
“When our plans to go digital materialises, many more people will be accorded the opportunity to access insurance wherever they are at any time and that will ultimately end the distance challenge for one to be insured.”
The training, which ended on Saturday, principally sought to empower the bank’s insurance officials on changing market trends as part of efforts to create a team with better understanding of the industry.
NMB Senior Bancassurance Manager, Martine Massawe, said the acquired knowledge and skills will be pivotal in making the bank a key player in the highly competitive sector.
