Great Eastern Eyes Wealth Business, Longevity as Focus Areas in Singapore

CEO highlights opportunities to bring banking products, services into insurance

- Chor Khieng Yuit

Great Eastern is raring for a fresh start, after resuming trading on the Singapore stock exchange on Aug 21, with the life insurer's chief executive highlighting ways to unlock more value during an event to mark its refreshed corporate logo.

Two abseilers descended the facade of the Great Eastern Building at One Pickering Street on the morning of Aug 26, unveiling the new logo, which features a redesigned lion motif and an updated tagline, "An OCBC Company".

A lion dance performance followed, signifying new beginnings under group chief executive officer Greg Hingston, who took the helm on Nov 1, 2024.

Speaking to the media, he highlighted two trends that he sees as important for the insurer—wealth creation and inter-generational wealth transfer; and an ageing population and growing longevity risks.

On the wealth creation trend, Mr Hingston said Great Eastern, which is strong in the mass market and affluent segment, has the opportunity to go further up the value chain into the high-net-worth market.

There is a "huge value unlock" that has not been addressed, he noted, adding that the strategy is to leverage OCBC's "One Group" network to realise these synergies.

Bank of Singapore is the private bank, while OCBC is the retail and commercial bank within this network.

Bank of Singapore serves high-net-worth individuals, while OCBC Premier Private Client targets the affluent individuals who deposit or invest at least $1.5 million and who qualify as accredited investors.