Life Insurance

Ping An Seeks to Defy Past by Expanding Bank, Asset Earnings

(Bloomberg) — Ping An Insurance (Group) Co., the world’s second-biggest life insurer, aims to sell banking and investing services to its 50 million customers with a one-stop shopping model being abandoned by U.S. and European companies.

Ping An, listed in Hong Kong and Shanghai, expects banking, asset management and insurance to each contribute a third of profit within about 10 years. Five years after Citigroup Inc. sold Travelers Life & Annuity and 17 months after Allianz SE agreed to sell Dresdner Bank, President Louis Cheung says Ping An will succeed in its bank-assurance ambition because it developed each business.

“Universal banking is dead, but we are not the same,” he said in an interview in his Shenzhen office. “We built from scratch each of our businesses, and we have such a young client group that grows continuously during the process.”

Ping An, part owned by HSBC Holdings Plc, may find it hard to convince some investors to back its vision as memories linger of Citigroup and Allianz’s retreat, and as some U.S. politicians propose reinstituting Depression-era strictures barring bank holding companies from other financial businesses. Ping An’s insurance unit accounted for 77 percent of its profit in the first half of last year, dwarfing banking operations’ 10 percent share and the 13 percent contribution of asset management.

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