Dai-ichi Life Vietnam energised by capital boost

How has Dai-ichi Life Vietnam mobilised funds to raise its chartered capital? Also, why is it raising its chartered capital at this time?

As of January 18, 2016, Dai-ichi Life Vietnam was officially given approval by the Ministry of Finance to increase its chartered capital from $72 million to $87 million. Dai-ichi Life Vietnam is also progressively preparing to raise its total chartered capital to $100 million in the first quarter of 2016. This marks a milestone of our nine-year journey in Vietnam. For the purposes of our business expansion and investment, a chartered capital of $100 million will affirm Dai-ichi Life Vietnam as one of the leading life insurers in terms of market capital. We are happy that our parent group has trusted us and injected more capital so that we can sustainably expand our business in Vietnam, implying that this is one of the key markets in Asia for the group’s overseas business development strategy.

After almost a decade operating in Vietnam, can you highlight some key milestones for Dai-ichi Life Vietnam?

After nine years in the business, Dai-ichi Life Vietnam has grown more than nine-fold in total premium revenue, and continues to maintain its leading position in the Top 4 in terms of total premiums in the life insurance market in Vietnam. We are now serving more than one million customers through a diversified and comprehensive portfolio of financial solutions, and a staff of nearly 750 employees and 50,000 professional financial consultants. Dai-ichi Life Vietnam is proud to hold the third rank position for its customer service network, with over 170 offices and general agencies throughout the country.

Besides our ten-year strategic co-operation with HDBank in distributing products through the bank’s network, most recently, on January 18, 2016, we successfully coupled raising our chartered capital with signing a long-term exclusive agreement with Vietnam Post Corporation (VNPost). For the next 15 years, Dai-ichi Life Vietnam will be the sole business providing life insurance products through VNPost’s network of post offices in 63 cities and provinces nationwide.

We were also honoured to receive many prestigious awards that demonstrate our superiority in providing high-quality products and professional services in the Vietnamese market. For instance, we were the only life insurer to receive the “Top 100 Brands - Vietnam Gold Star 2015” award by the Vietnam Young Entrepreneurs Association, and the “Trusted Brand” award for three consecutive years (2013, 2014, and 2015), as well as the Golden Dragon award with the title “The Best Life Insurer” for seven consecutive years (2008-2014), along with many other accolades.

Dai-ichi Life Vietnam takes great pride in being recognised throughout Asia for initiatives that support social progress. We were twice granted the “Corporate Social Responsibility Award” by the Asia Insurance Review magazine for our project to supply clean drinking water and our rural bridge building programme.

How has Dai-ichi Life demonstrated its commitment to life improvement and the progress of society in Vietnam?

Without a doubt, we are strongly committed to the development of a sustainable society and to making long-term contributions to benefit the community. This is reflected not only in our charity initiatives, but also in our business movements. Take our co-operation with VNPost as an example. This is part of our strategy to diversify the distribution channels of Dai-ichi Life Vietnam, but in fact it also serves our desire to create opportunities for all people in Vietnam to access our company’s quality life insurance products and services, especially those living in rural and remote areas. With tireless efforts from both sides, we are very happy to launch the first savings and protection package “Loc Hung Thinh” on March 18, 2016, which has many advanced benefits to meet the needs of our rural customers.

Dai-ichi Life Vietnam has also pioneered many other charitable and social programmes, with a total contribution of over VND15 billion ($671,250). We have funded scholarships for impoverished and underprivileged students, financed eye operations for the blind, and many others.

What lies ahead for Dai-ichi Life Vietnam?

Looking forward to our 10-year anniversary as a lifetime partner of the Vietnamese people in January 2017, we are committed to sparing no effort to develop our available resources, to continue our business network expansion, and to improve our service quality in order to reach a 10 per cent market share in the life insurance industry by the end of 2016.

Last but not least, Dai-ichi Life Vietnam has taken steps to establish a Corporate Social Responsibility Fund, titled the “For A Better Life” Foundation. This foundation has the noble mission of improving the quality of life for the Vietnamese people through long-term and regular community support, focusing on the areas of health, education, environment, and charity.