Singapore Life has just raised US$7.3 million (approximately SG$10 million) from Hong Kong-based Ion Pacific, an asset management company, according to DealStreetAsia. Ion Pacific joins Aflac and Standard Life Aberdeen, Singapore Life’s original shareholders in this round of fundraising.

Ion Pacific’s part in this transaction enables them access into Southeast Asia, which it characterised as a “key focus region” for the company. Southeast Asia’s life insurance market.

The region, particularly Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines has mainly been served by agents doing face-to-face meetings, which is often deemed as the best means of establishing trust with their prospects and understand their situation.

The explosion of digital insurance platforms allows insurance companies to reach consumers at lower costs, and to reach otherwise underserved segments before.  The rapidly increasing development of these regions also allow for more insurance awareness and need amongst the populations.

Singapore Life has been actively playing in the insurance field since 2017, and in that time, raised US$90.3 million ( approximately SG$124.3 million) in external funding so far. Previously, Singapore Life acquired Zurich Life’s consumer base as the latter’s business wound down.

Earlier this year, Singapore Life diversified into payments by acquiring Canvas, later launching a prepaid Visa card that allows parents to decide the amount of pocket money to assign their children via the Canvas platform. The Canvas acquisition was one of Singapore Life’s efforts into adding value to its core insurance business.

Featured image via Singapore Life