By Hyeong-Gyo Seo | The Korea Economic Daily | April 24, 2024<\/p>\n
Korea’s second-largest insurer will buy a 40% stake in Nobu Bank to tap into the Southeast Asian banking industry<\/strong><\/p>\n South Korea\u2019s second-largest insurer Hanwha Life Insurance Co., with 109 trillion won ($79.4 billion) in total assets as of end-September 2023, said on Wednesday it will buy shares in a banking unit of Indonesian conglomerate Lippo Group to expand its business in Southeast Asia, which is experiencing strong economic growth with fast-growing middle-class populations.<\/p>\n Hanwha Life is set to buy a 40% stake in Lippo’s Bank Nationalnobu Tbk PT, or Nobu Bank, listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange. The details of the purchase plan were not disclosed. <\/p>\n The deal comes more than a year after Hanwha Life and its non-life insurance affiliate in March 2023 bought a combined 62.6% stake in Lippo General Insurance, another unit of the Indonesian conglomerate and the 14th-largest non-life insurer in the Southeast Asian country. <\/p>\n It is essential for the Korean insurer to accelerate global expansion for sustainable growth beyond the domestic market, said Hanwha Life Chief Executive Yeo Seung-joo. Through the purchase, the insurance firm will grow as a group that provides comprehensive financial services, and it sees Indonesia as a key region for its expansion into Southeast Asia, the CEO added.<\/p>\n If the deal is closed, Hanwha Life will become the first Korean insurer to advance into the overseas banking industry.<\/p>\n Founded in 1990, Nobu Bank has around 2.3 trillion won in total assets as of end-2023 and manages 115 branches across Indonesia. The bank specializes in lending to small and medium-sized enterprises and mortgage loans.<\/p>\n Hanwha Life aims to establish itself in Indonesia in the near term by combining its mobile financial services with Lippo Group\u2019s expertise in bank management.<\/p>\n The Korean insurer will boost its sales in Indonesia through its digital banking system and Nobu Bank\u2019s offline banking services.<\/p>\n The insurer said it will also ramp up insurance plan sales of its Indonesian affiliate and Lippo General Insurance through bancassurance and using Lippo Group\u2019s strong local networks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Hyeong-Gyo Seo | The Korea Economic Daily | April 24, 2024 Korea’s second-largest insurer will buy a 40% stake in Nobu Bank to tap into the Southeast Asian banking industry South Korea\u2019s second-largest insurer Hanwha Life Insurance Co., with 109 trillion won ($79.4 billion) in total assets as of end-September 2023, said on Wednesday… Read More »Hanwha Life to buy stake in Indonesia’s Lippo-owned bank<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"off","neve_meta_content_width":70,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-korea","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/insurance.vincent-chen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/insurance.vincent-chen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/insurance.vincent-chen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insurance.vincent-chen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insurance.vincent-chen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1642"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/insurance.vincent-chen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1642\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1643,"href":"https:\/\/insurance.vincent-chen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1642\/revisions\/1643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/insurance.vincent-chen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insurance.vincent-chen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insurance.vincent-chen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}