Banks to be more selective of insurance partners

Insurance companies selling products through banks may face difficulties as lenders become more cautious when choosing insurance partners.

The China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) has tightened up rules regulating the sale of insurance by banks. The new rules emphasise risk control, now requiring banks to clarify for customers all the risks related to the insurance products and prohibiting the sale of the insurance products together with deposits. Insurance company salespeople are banned from being based at bank branches and each bank branch can only sell the insurance products of no more than three insurance companies.

In addition, the new rules stipulate that bank staff responsible for selling insurance must now have a concurrent business agent licence from the CBRC, telephone conversations must be recorded when bank staff are selling insurance to customers, and banks must perform a risk profile assessment.