Two former senior Citibank executives who left to set up an insurance broker business have launched a platform to enable clients to choose from a wide array of banking and insurance products in the UAE.
DJ Sengupta (pictured left below), who was Emea head of Insurance for Citibank, and Kirtan Desai (pictured right), previously credit cards portfolio head for Citibank, cofounded the BankonUs platform to sit as a key offering for clients of its established Insurance Authority regulated Capstone Insurance Brokers firm.
Dubai-based Capstone, which is parent owned by the Innovations Group, has a mainly non-resident Indian and Philippine client base.
Lack of transparency
Sengupta said: “There is one thing that we want to change in the financial advisory industry. It is the lack of transparency. Lack of transparency that leads to advisers recommending products based on the revenue that they make and not on the need of the customer.
“Our model helps change that. The customer goes through the product discovery and comparison phase in the digital platform with no revenue biases”
He added: “Our mission is to become the most reliable platform for personal finance and insurance in the UAE by simplifying the process.”
The BankonUS platform enables clients to compare insurance policies, credit cards, loans and bank accounts all in one place, as well as a financial education section.
Three steps
The customer journey comprises of three steps, namely product discovery, pricing comparison and finally advisory leading to purchase of the products.
For life insurance products, the first two phases of product discovery and comparison happens in the platform, while in 100% of cases in step three qualified financial advisers are involved, Sengupta explained.
“As a customer goes through the product discovery for other products such as car, health insurance and credit cards it gives us an insight into his financial needs. This helps when one of our financial advisers meets the client face-to-face, who come across as prepared as you would expect a private banker to be, and the experience is akin to that of a private banking transaction.”
The financial adviser then ensures that the customer understands every risk involved before they finally sign up.
“At this stage it is impossible for the adviser to change product recommendation based on revenue dynamics. This is a big change. As the customer purchases other products and interacts with us at different levels, the AI built into the platform helps the adviser to know about changes in the customers lifestyle and directs conversations based on predictive modelling.”
Banking products
The banking products on the platform, which are not regulated by the Insurance Authority, offer a “neutral” place to help with product discovery, he said.
“The algorithms that we have developed helps our customers understand the monetary benefit of the products they are looking for. It is not a listing like some other platforms but a value comparison between cards. It is financial education that we focus on.
“Debt consolidation is another need of the hour and our platform helps clients to consolidate their debts across cards and loans.” To understand debt consolidation more, you can check out a site like https://www.debtconsolidation.com/understanding-debt-consolidation/ for more info!
The platform was soft launched five months ago, with life insurance added recently, after receiving seed funding of $1m.
