Credit: Dreamstime
Regulatory technology specialist Kyckr has signed an agreement with AXA Insurance in Singapore to commence work on creating insurance specific services across Asia.
Following several proofs of concepts during the last six months, the agreement will see AXA adopt Kyckr’s application-programming interface (API) to establish greater automation in the development of new insurance related services.
Kyckr’s API is an enterprise technology, embedding real-time direct access to over 200 corporate registries globally from a single user-interface.
The deal will see Australian-based Kyckr receive initial revenue of $380,000 SGD, incorporating technology services and the provision of digital data, with additional revenue from services to follow with the expansion of services across Asia. AXA looks to commence project rollout in the first half of FY20.
“The agreement with AXA Singapore is an excellent achievement for Kyckr,” said Ian Henderson, CEO of Kyckr.
“The fact that one of the world’s largest insurers has committed to leveraging our technical know-how to deliver value-enhancing insurance products is a great testament to our technology. We look forward to building an innovative service for AXA Singapore.”
According to Henderson, underwriting of commercial insurance requires the provision of information about the company, its directors, shareholders and credit rating to enable underwriters to provide a quote for insurance.
Today, this process of collecting information is performed manually and is both "costly and time consuming" for the insurer, customer and intermediary.
Currently, information requires submitting, reviewing and verification (using external verification sources) before a quote can be issued, resulting in a delay of up to two weeks before a customer can receive a quote and policy.
“By using the Kyckr API for direct primary source data, this turnaround time can potentially be reduced to 1-3 days,” Henderson said.
The project funding has been approved by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) with delivery scheduled to commence in Singapore, followed by delivery across select countries in Asia.
As know-your-customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering efforts increase, Henderson said accessing legally authoritative KYC information direct from registries provides firms with an "effective process" for customer verification to help prevent financial crime.
“KYC verification is becoming increasingly critical to companies and we will continue to collaborate with leading global firms to embed our unique registry network and provide clients with the most up-to-date and legally accurate information for customer verification,” Henderson added.
AXA Insurance is part of the AXA Group, with 171,000 employees serving 105 million clients in 61 countries, having been present in Singapore since 1969.
