Singapore will benefit hugely from delivery of Blueprint II: IUA’S CEO Matcham

November 4 2024 by

Blueprint I and II is a joint initiative including the IUA, Lloyd’s and Velonetic, and seeks to re-engineer the way business is transacted in the market through all aspects of placement and processing of premiums and claims.

“I always find it interesting to compare digital developments in the various wholesale hubs – London, Singapore, Dubai and Bermuda. London has been getting on with Blueprint, and when that is successfully delivered, I think that will then become a catalyst for other markets like Singapore to see what London is doing and how it can be linked directly to the way Singapore operates at the moment, which is not a joined-up market from a technology perspective.”

“At the moment, much of Singapore’s back office activities are heavily reliant on London- primarily either the back offices of companies or the central back office run by Velonetic. So of course as London develops its Blueprint and… you get into Phase II thinking and the market itself going digital, I believe that global companies will want to have digital efficiencies in all hubs and operations, and not just in London. So I see a natural exportation of what London is doing into Singapore.”

“At the moment, much of Singapore’s back office activities are heavily reliant on London- primarily either the back offices of companies or the central back office run by Velonetic.” Dave Matcham, International Underwriting Association (IUA)

“However, we’re nowhere near there at the moment. Singapore has a mixed ability in digital capability. It doesn’t have a joined-up approach. It doesn’t have what London has – what you might call binding associations around it. Both the local associations here are fairly small, and don’t have digital transformation as a key objective within them, whereas the IUA, the LMA (London Market Association) and LIIBA ( London & International Insurance Brokers’ Association) do in London. But I think that in time that will come.”

He added that he was confident that there are other individual technology initiatives which are successful in Singapore such as AI, data analytics and data science, where more “forward thinking brokers are perhaps looking to use those tools to aid their regional business”.

ACCORD standards
Matcham added another reason he is in Singapore for SIRC is representing the global data standards setter for reinsurance and insurance, which formed a global advisory council a year ago of which he is chair.

“Its objective is to educate and introduce data standards into the hubs like Singapore. It’s not to say they don’t use them at the moment- they do – but not the wider market context that perhaps London does at the moment. So I’m going to look forward to having discussions with a number of brokers and carriers here to promote the use of data standards, and their natural benefits that give them in terms of operational efficiency and benefits to clients.”

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