AIA boosts dividend as new business booms

The insurance and finance corporation AIA (1299) saw its first-half net profit jump 46 percent yearly to US$2.25 billion (HK$17.55 billion), driven by strong growth in Hong Kong and the mainland, and raised the interim dividend by 5 percent to 42.29 HK cents a share.

The new business value in Hong Kong soared 111 percent yearly to US$681 million for the first six months of the year, thanks to the return of mainland visitors after the border reopening.

Business in the mainland climbed 14 percent to US$601 million over the same period, benefiting from the distribution partnership with Bank of East Asia (0023) and Postal Savings Bank of China (1658).

These helped the total value of the new business for the first half to surge 37 percent yearly to US$2.03 billion.

AIA said the mainland clients have a strong demand for long-term saving products and critical illness products, as customers turn conservative amid the low confidence in the domestic economic recovery.

However, the overall first-half margin for new business value dipped to 50.8 percent from 55.2 percent one year ago, which AIA mainly attributed to more long-term saving products sold.

Lee Yuan Siong, executive director and group chief executive and president, said the margin in Hong Kong and the mainland stayed over 50 percent, which was still healthy.

Despite no forecast for the second half, AIA believes mainlanders will continue to be the growth driver because the deposit amounts in Chinese banks hit records several times this year, which might indicate the demand for long-term wealth management.

For the first half, the average case size by mainland clients in Hong Kong and Macau reached US$20,000, doubling the pre-pandemic level.

New customers accounted for 79 percent of the second-quarter business from mainland visitors, larger than 59 percent in the previous quarter.

AIA will keep focusing on affluent clients after the first-half Million Dollar Round Table qualifiers expanded by 49 percent yearly. And the company remained No 1 in MDRT globally this year.

Recently, Chinese insurers were asked to stop the sales of whole-life insurance products at a yield of 3.5 percent or above. But the new tighter regulations from China's regulators had little impact on AIA's businesses, said the regional chief executive and group chief distribution officer Jacky Chan Wing-shing, as AIA had no such sales through agents in mainland China.