ANZ and Suncorp New Zealand have announced plans to collaborate with IBM on developing blockchain solutions for the re/insurance market in New Zealand (NZ).
The parties aim to leverage distributed ledger technology to help make data transfer and payment reconciliation processes between brokers and re/insurers faster and more transparent.
The collaborative project is believed to be the first one of its kind in New Zealand.
Paul Goodwin, ANZ Managing Director Institutional NZ, said: “Reconciling policy information and premium payments made by a broker to an insurer on behalf of customers is a slow and painful process.
“The blockchain solution will be much more efficient for the industry as well as being very secure. As a ‘single source of truth’, it will provide greater visibility throughout the process, remove uncertainty and help make response times faster.
“This technology will work with existing industry solutions to capture relevant information; ensuring payments can be forecast and made without the need for reconciliation.”
ANZ has already leveraged blockchain technology in the past to create a secure and decentralised property guarantees solution.
“Distributed ledger technologies are driving major efficiencies across many industries by enabling previously complex, manual processes to operate in real time with full transparency,” said Mike Smith, Managing Director, IBM New Zealand.
He continued: “IBM used design-led thinking principles and practices to reinvent the business processes behind intermediated insurance at ANZ.
“The result is an interoperable network that could not only decrease policy costs and improve customer service, but also build a foundation for the introduction of other transformative technologies, such as artificial intelligence.”
Tim Buckett, Chief Financial Officer (CFO) at Suncorp New Zealand, also commented: “We’re always looking at ways to generate operational efficiencies and the Proof of Concept was an exciting way to test whether a technology solution can speed up the reconciliation process for insurance premium payments, while at the same time improving the customer experience for policyholders and our business partners.”
