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Perspectives: Transforming insurance and asset servicing in Hong Kong
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Ellick Tsui, Deputy CEO and CFO, CTF Life, joins Fiona Horsewill, Global Head of Securities Services, HSBC, and Lisa O’Connor, Global Head of Client Change in Securities Services, HSBC, to discuss the pivotal role insurance and asset servicing play in fortifying Hong Kong as a leading international financial hub.
This episode was recorded on 14 October 2025.
Disclaimer: Views of external guest speakers do not represent those of HSBC.
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Transcript
Introduction to HSBC Global Viewpoint
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to HSBC Global Viewpoint, the podcast series that brings together business leaders and industry experts to explore the latest global insights, trends, and opportunities.
00:00:12
Speaker
Make sure you're subscribed to stay up to date with new episodes. Thanks for listening, and now onto today's show.
Meet Alec and Fiona
00:00:23
Speaker
I'm Lisa O'Connor, Global Head of Client Change at HSBC Security Services. For this episode of Global Viewpoint, I'm thrilled today to have in the studio with us, Alec, who is Deputy CEO and CFO of CTF Life, and Fiona, who is Global Head of HSBC Security Services. Thank you for joining us today, Alec and Fiona. Thank you. Thank you for having us.
Role of Insurance & Asset Servicing in Hong Kong
00:00:43
Speaker
In today's episode, we'll talk about the pivotal role that insurance and asset servicing are playing to fortify Hong Kong as a leading international center. Let's get started. So first today we'd like to talk about Hong Kong's role as a global financial center and insurance hub and how we expect that will evolve in the next five years.
00:01:01
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Alec? Yeah. Hi Lisa. Amid geopolitical uncertainty and macrovoluntility, Hong Kong is a beacon of stability, which continues to cement itself as ah both a leading international financial center and insurance hub.
00:01:16
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Hong Kong ranks first globally among global financial centers according to GFCI 38 and is the leader in Asia-Pacific for open capital markets.
00:01:27
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As a gateway connecting global investment and mainland Chinese companies, we are seeing an uptick in locally domiciled IPO issuance, progressive regulations on digital assets, and simple and tax regime reforms underpinned by a robust talent pool driving growth.
00:01:44
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Hong Kong insurance industry with the highest penetration rate globally stands at a strategic inflection point caused by significant growth filled by both local and offshore markets. The general insurance market in Hong Kong is projected to grow at a CAGR of 5.1% from billion in and 2025 estimates reflects a year-on-year growth of rate of 4.7 percent and we expect its trend to continue.
00:02:19
Speaker
Thank you so much for sharing those very interesting statistics in terms of Hong Kong's status as a global financial center and also in the insurance sector. That's fantastic, thank
Evolving Client Expectations in Asia
00:02:29
Speaker
you. So next we'd like to talk about some of the key changes in client expectations and the needs as clients are expanding across Asia and how we as an industry can best address those. So Fiona, over to you for your views the security services industry and what this means.
00:02:46
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Thanks Lisa. So as we all know, Asia is very diverse as a region. Different cultures, different regulatory regimes. And what we're seeing really is that despite that asset owners and managers are really looking to create a consistent operating model across the region and they're looking for a partner to help them do that. Now they're looking to do that because they see efficiency gains and cost gains in doing so.
00:03:12
Speaker
And then if you couple that with the drive for data related services, so asset owners and managers are looking at how they service their underlying investors. And to do that, they need data to be consistent and for that to be real time and for that to be flowing through to their investors. So we see those two themes emerging quite strongly.
00:03:32
Speaker
Thank you, Fiona, for sharing that. Are you seeing similar trends in the insurance sector
Leveraging Data in Life Insurance
00:03:37
Speaker
as well? Yes, we are seeing seeing similar trends in insurance sectors and especially the end customers now are getting younger and the digital expectations are becoming more sophisticated. For life insurance companies, we hold a large amount of data and now the key is to how do we leverage all this data into making sure that we can provide more personalized services to our customers through this data and information that we have on hand. And those providers which can evolve with the customers will be the ones that thrive. And that's a great segue to our next discussion that we wanted to have, which was really around the digital transformation of operating models and also product offering.
AI's Transformative Potential in Insurance
00:04:18
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So Alec, you talked earlier about data, um and it'd be great to know now how data and technology are transforming the insurance sector.
00:04:28
Speaker
I think AI has the potential to transform the whole insurance industry. A recent global survey from FinExtra showed that 38% of the financial institutions in Hong Kong are already using generative AI, compared to the global average of 26%. And the Hong Kong Insurance Authority has done a survey and found that it has already transformed the insurance landscape from underwriting and claims to fraud detection and customer services.
00:04:57
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and 20% of the insurers have already established a strategy to steer towards AI adoption. A study by EY also helped to explain why insurers are obliged to do so because they think it could benefit the average cost savings of more than 20% over the next two years with AI-related productivity enhancements.
00:05:20
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Area of focus would be like marketing, personalized and customized service as well. leveraging predictive analytics. Insurers ability to manage risk and will enhance the revenue as well.
00:05:34
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The survey found insurers are investing heavily in predictive analytics with 74% of the firms identifying it as a key area for underwriting and claims functions.
00:05:47
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That's amazing. really goes to show the innovation in Hong Kong as a financial center. Thank you, Alec.
AI in Security Services and Compliance
00:05:54
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Fiona, there's a lot of use of data, new technology and security services as well in helping to serve clients as they expand across the Asia region. Can you share a little bit more with us about that?
00:06:06
Speaker
Sure. ai really does have the potential to transform the industry and we're seeing that more and more in terms of the possibilities. We're seeing more organizations roll out their own productivity suites, with analytics and and really starting to embed that in the organizations. There was a recent McKinsey paper which focused on asset management, quoting that for a manager of, let's say, $500 billion dollars of assets under management, that if they really did focus on rolling out AI appropriately, they could get 25 to 40 percent cost savings. So that that's quite enormous. um Across security services, we do see this ah in being used across the value chain. Now that said, there there are many different applications of it, but it needs to be in a controlled environment. It needs to be with a focus on, you know what is the return on investment? We should no longer be playing around with this stuff. It needs to be very focused. It's, you know, what is my control environment around it? What's the regulator's view on what I'm putting in place and and how my showing that we've got the right level of discipline and then also thinking about the workforce so you know what my son coming to work is going to have a very different view of life than or or experience than i ever had and so the skill sets that we're going to be looking for are very different it's going to be eq becomes more important alongside engineering so making sure that people are doing scenario planning around the the use of ai to look at what could
00:07:42
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potentially go wrong and to plan around that, but also to be able to call out hallucinations and and misuse of data. So the world, you know, the the technology has these benefits and then how we operate it and what we look like as individuals really changes as we go on that journey.
00:08:00
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What an exciting time for your industries. Thank you so much for sharing. That's really interesting statistics, especially around the ability to harness some of these new technologies and what that could bring in terms of efficiencies to to your industries.
00:08:13
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um So lastly, what I'd like to ask you is just really around the critical themes or areas of focus for insurance providers and asset managers and how they should prioritize to adapt and future-proof their operations amongst not only these kind of trends in technology, but also the current global landscape.
Cybersecurity and AI
00:08:30
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So I like Yeah, I think cyber security and operational resilience are among the most important fields. AI cannot be advanced without cyber security.
00:08:41
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So the two must be developed together. More regulators nowadays, including Hong Kong, are scrutinizing cyber security protocols in much more detail at all financial institutions. Data security is the key.
00:08:55
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Different markets have different views on data security, storage and transfer. This highlights the importance of selecting a reliable service provider with strong risk management framework as data protection is the key to the choice of provider.
00:09:11
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And HSBC actually is a trusted partner of this aspect. Thank you so much for trusting us. We always appreciate it, Alec. And I think that's a really good segue to you, Fiona, as well.
Converging Practices and Data Analytics in Finance
00:09:22
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Because I know obviously you know you're focused on this, you're focused on how how do we future-proof our operations and and adapt to everything that's going on in the global landscape. So from a security services perspective, what's your view on that? what I think it's fair to say there are a number of converging practices. So you you look at T plus one in in the marketplace and and how that is becoming much more global. So what that means is that people are looking, organisations are looking at their legacy technology to to shrink that friction.
00:09:53
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But then you layer that with the data analytics and the data capabilities that we have now and then AI, that becomes super powerful. and we we have the potential to get to properly real-time settlement, properly real-time investor, underlying investor settlement. And again, i come back to the control environment. So making sure that we've got the the control environment in place and the the population and the skill sets to manage that, the the power becomes quite immense.
00:10:26
Speaker
Alec and Fiona, thank you so much for joining me on this episode of Global Viewpoint. It's been a real pleasure speaking with both of you and an honor having you here. For those of you at home listening, thank you for tuning in as always.
00:10:39
Speaker
Thank you for joining us at HSBC Global Viewpoint. We hope you enjoyed the discussion. Make sure you're subscribed to stay up to date with new episodes.