Staff Reporter:
All the scheduled banks operating in the country can now act as agents of insurance companies.
At the same time, banks can engage in marketing and selling insurance products.
The Banking Regulations and Policy Department of Bangladesh Bank (BB) issued instructions in this regard yesterday (Tuesday).
Bancassurance is an arrangement between a bank and an insurance company allowing the insurance com-pany to sell its products to the bank’s client base.
According to the instructions, Bancassurance has been introduced through scheduled banks operating in the country. All banks are given the power under the Bank Companies Act, 1991 can do the business of marketing and selling insurance products as ‘corporate agents’ of insurance companies from December 12 (Tuesday).
Those concerned said that bancassurance is a French word. First launched in France and Spain around 1980. Life insurance policies are sold through banks in most European countries. It has also gained pop-ularity in various Asian countries. It was introduced in neighboring India about three centuries ago. Pa-kistan, Sri Lanka have also been successful in bancassurance.
Bancassurance will be implemented mainly through the branches of the country’s banks as per the ap-proved policies and guidelines. There has been a complaint for a long time that the general public’s trust in the insurance sector is relatively low, so bancassurance can be a place of trust.
The idea is that customers do not have to go to the insurance company for the insurance product but go to the bank branch.
