China Construction Bank Partners IBM for Blockchain ‘Bancassurance’ Solution

China Construction Bank, the world’s second-largest bank by market capitalization, is working with IBM to develop and launch a blockchain-enabled bancassurance platform for its retail and commercial banking arm in Hong Kong.

A ‘bancassurance’ endeavor typically sees sales of insurance products through banks following a partnership between a bank and an insurance company. It’s a profitable, win-win model for both entities as banks can earn additional revenue through selling insurance products while insurance companies expand their customer bases through the bank’s channels and client base. However, the arrangement is often plagued by incomplete customer information and inefficient data transmission.

With yet another blockchain-based solution for the financial industry, IBM is leveraging the decentralized technology to streamline CCB (Asia)’s bancassurance operations that will enable a shared view of insurance policy data in real-time. This would negate the need for status checks that would delay processing times for insurance products. All data will be recorded and shared on an immutable ledger build on IBM’s Blockchain Platform.

IBM Hong Kong general manager Francis Ngai stated:

Blockchain enables businesses to transact with less friction and more trust…In working with CCB (Asia) and the partner insurers, we have seen how the technology is disrupting traditional businesses processes. This work sets a standard for local banking and financial institutions in the future.

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The blockchain platform is currently in its testing phase between China Construction Bank (Asia) and its insurance providers and their clients. The blockchain-enabled bancassurance solution is expected to launch in Q3 2017.

The blockchain solution was developed using Hyperledger Fabric 1.0, the open-source production-ready blockchain software released by the Hyperledger project, a cross-industry consortium which sees IBM as a founding member.

The blockchain-based solution is already proving successful, according to CCB deputy chief executive Guo Zhipeng.

“After the successful launch of this blockchain-enabled bancassurance project, we plan to extend our experience to other insurance partners in order to optimize our overall bancassurance business,” the banking executive stated.