January and February of this year, national bank-insurance premium revenue increased 121% compared to the same period of last year, but the growth rate of the bank-insurance business from January to May, released recently by CIRC, decreased to 85.59%.

“Cold current” comes

All corresponds to the expectation. Since April, the treasury bonds, the fund and the stock market shared a great deal of capital. Compared to the investment return rate of 50%, the bank insurance business, which is similar to the bank savings, is not attractive.

In March, CIRC issued the discussion draft of <The implementation opinion regarding the commercial bribery management of the insurance industry>. 19 April, CIRC and CBRC held a meeting to talk about the cooperation of bank and insurance and identify the recent focus of it. Both parties decided to take effective measures to regulate the development of the bank insurance business, resolve the problems of misleading and the irregularity of commission payment, and crack down the commercial bribery.

Four years ago, the commission of the bank insurance products was not more than 1%, but now, 2.5% is the minimum. In other words, for 100 yuan premium, life insurance companies should pay at least 2.5 yuan to the banks. However, for obtaining the agreement of cooperation between the bank and insurance, some insurance companies even increase the commission. Some people say that the commission can even reach 3% to 4%, and the property insurance companies, who recently enter the bank insurance market, give much higher commission.

Regarding the vicious competition of commissions, Chen Wenhui, president assistant of CIRC, pointed out that along with the development of bank insurance business, the competition becomes more and more fierce, the commission of the bank insurance also becomes higher than that of fund industry, nevertheless, the bank insurance business does not make much contribution to the profits of insurance companies. At the same time, the act of off-balance sheet subsidy of the grassroots organizations was suspected of commercial bribery.

Product innovation and mechanism innovation, who should be first?

Based on the above considerations, banks have become currently one of the most important sales channels for the insurance companies. A related responsible person of CIRC revealed that especially for the life insurance companies, premiums realized by banks occupies around 1/3 fo the total premiums. In the condition that the main body of our national financial system is the bank industry, the combination of the bank and the insurance, namely the development of the bank insurance, has developed rapidly.

However, there exist some difficulties in the actual development process, such as the imperfect after-sales service and lack of optimization of the insurance programs. The bank insurance department staff of Agricultural Bank said that along with the development of bank insurance business, the insurance companies launched some insurance products which fit for the bank sales. But at present the product category is very simple, mainly some products who fit for the account sales, such as accident insurance products, life insurance products emphasized on deposit and investment. This is because that on one hand, the closed counter products can not be too complicated; on the other hand, the products provide weak protection function as the insurance companies intend to decrease the moral risks.

As a life insurance company who always operates bank insurance business, the agent of Tai Ping Life Insurance Company said that in long-term, the innovative products, especially combined with the original products of the bank, can attract the bank clients. Concretely speaking, design the long-term and protective productions, develop the cooperation between the bank and the insurance based on the win-win situation. In addition, strengthen the network of the bank and insurance. With the strong technical support, we can realize the product innovation and the customer service functions.

To realize the above objectives, the banks and the insurance companies should be closer in terms of profits. Especially in the condition that the profits of banks transfer from traditional business such as savings and loans to the intermediary business whose cost and risk are low and profits are high, the commercial banks should consider the bank insurance business as one of the long-term and stable businesses, not the supplement means to enlarge the business scale.

The realization of the concept innovation needs the innovation of process, model and system. Not long ago, 12 branches of Construction Bank of China welcomed the Sales manager of Ping An bank insurance department and 6 IC managers stationed in the pilot branches one year and a half ago. Ping An has realized exclusive cooperation under the IC model with 18 branches of Construction Bank .

The mission of the 18 IC managers is that through the network platform of Construction Bank, formulate the tailor-made financial plan for the clients based on the clients’ financial examination.

The premium scale is not the most important, the key point is to breakthrough the business model. Lu Min, general manager of bank insurance department believe that the most urgent problem of bank insurance business in the Continental China is to stop the competition of commission and to form the high-valued business model.