Strategic Collaboration to streamline insurance payments – Hong Kong
In order to digitalise payments acceptance for insurance premium collections from policyholders in Hong Kong, Bindo Labs, the parent company and developer of Wonder, announced its strategic collaboration with Generali Hong Kong.
Wonder is a prominent payments gateway and fintech platform for merchants in Hong Kong and APAC. Generali Hong Kong is a division of Generali Group, one of the largest integrated insurance and asset management groups in the world. Through a first-of-its-kind innovation, this partnership improves Generali Hong Kong’s payment processing and supports a more cohesive client experience by utilising Citi’s Spring by Citi® digital payment acceptance solution.
Through digital payment methods and automatic payments reconciliation, Wonder, Generali Hong Kong, and Citi® will strategically collaborate to correlate premium collections with policy statuses. In addition to increasing operational efficiency and speeding up the expansion of insurance policy underwriting, the solution will also boost client satisfaction by providing more convenience.
This collaboration marks the first time a global insurance company in Hong Kong can:
- Integrate with over 20 payment methods through Wonder’s unified online and offline payment solution and Citi’s Spring by Citi platform.
- Manage cost of acceptance through transparent “interchange plus” pricing model.
- Combine digital payment acceptance with direct cash settlement to Citi.
- Offer all services on a cloud-based platform which enables effortless upgrades for future development.
“The strategic collaboration between Wonder and Citi is founded on the mutual dedication and commitment to empower Generali Hong Kong and its valued clients with streamlined payment solutions for making and receiving payments,” stated Jason Ngan, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Wonder. “Through this landmark collaboration between a bank and fintech in serving leading global financial institutions, it strongly signifies to the banking and finance community that banks and fintechs are not competitors, but rather are ideal strategic collaborators, capable of unleashing synergies through cooperation and jointly creating new value.”
Alessandro Lavenia, Chief Financial Officer of Generali Hong Kong further added, “Generali Hong Kong has focused on expanding its payment options for policyholders in Hong Kong to drive growth and prepare for future business opportunities. Previously, each new payment method required a dedicated gateway, leading to slow time-to-market. With this strategic collaboration, we can readily adopt new payment methods more quickly while enhancing operational efficiency and customer experience.”
Anoushka Dua, Head of Payments – Asia South, Japan, Asia North & Australia, Services at Citi said “As our insurance clients swiftly embark on extensive digital transformations, they are reshaping their product offerings into a suite of digital services to remain competitive and enhance customer experiences. We are pleased to support them and act as their banking collaborator on this digital journey, and we look forward to growing together in this dynamic market.”
Priyanka Gargav, Head of Spring by Citi – APAC & EMEA at Citi said, “Spring by Citi, our innovative digital payment acceptance solution, is empowering insurance clients in their digital transformation. By collaborating with leading fintechs, we aim to deliver, amongst other things: faster settlement, transparent and lower cost, more streamlined reconciliation, and a best-in-class customer experience.”
This strategic partnership attracted a lot of attention during the 2024 Hong Kong FinTech Week, demonstrating the advantages of a bank and fintech working together to develop a more cohesive payments acceptance solution for customers and businesses.
Source: Wonder|Citi|Generali HongKong