Bancassurance springs to life in Romania

Banca Romana pentru Dezvoltare- Groupe Societe Generale (Romanian Development Bank – BRD) and Commercial Union Asigurari de Viata (Life Insurance) for the first time on the Romanian market signed a framework distribution contract for the bank assurance system, which enables the insurer to distribute its products through the BRD network.

“I am positive Romanians will welcome this major project,” said Patrick Gelin, BRD general manager.

“This joint effort will allow BRD clients to benefit from the extra value a modern life insurance product can bring, by adding up to a financial portfolio,” Carl Boehr, chairman of Commercial Union Asigurari de Viata in his turn said.

At the moment, it is trendy for banks worldwide to team up with insurance companies for the so-called bancassurance, which entails an overlapping of the networks owned by a specific bank and insurer, in order to boost sales.

The most recent such alliance was the one between Dresdner Bank-Allianz, announced two months ago.

The first move of the kind in Romania was made by the ING financial group, which has recently announced its decision to put the banking and insurance divisions in Romania under the same umbrella, that is ING-Nederlanden, and a partial overlapping of the retail networks.

Analysts say other alliances are likely for the future, such as Allianz-?iriac Asigurari and Banca ?iriac, which have a joint stockholding, Banca Transilvania and a smaller insurer, that is SAR Transilvania, in which the bank holds a stake or Wienner Stadtische-Unita and BankAustria Creditanstalt, which might continue their Austrian partnership on the Romanian market.