Author: Winsoft Technologies

A Peek Into the Insurance Industry

The insurance industry in India is vast with over 58 insurance companies spread across the country. The overall market size of this sector was valued at $280 billion in the year 2020. Between 2019 and 2023, the growth of this sector with a CAGR of 5.3% is expected, thereby contributing to the ever-growing nature of this sector and rasing need for good insurance software solutions. In addition, the government has also taken plenty of initiatives to boost the insurance industry. For instance, in August 2021, the Government of India approved an investment worth Rs. 6,000 Crores into entities. This approval ensured the offering of export insurance cover in order to facilitate additional exports in the next 5 years worth Rs. 5.6 Crores.

Similarly, the government has also taken other initiatives to support the other segments of the insurance sector. This brings into the light the different types of products available in this sector. The products range from life insurance, health insurance, and motor insurance to home insurance, and others. Of these available products, it’s key to note the market penetration that these insurance products have. In FY 2020, there was just about 3.76 percent of market penetration whereas in FY 2021, there was 4.2 percent penetration. Overall, according to the Swiss Re Institute, India has observed a positive increase in market penetration of 0.1 percent and has a global market share of 1.7 percent.

Insurance is typically bought either directly from the insurer or through independent agents and commercial brokers. This is called the insurance distribution business. Over the time of the Covid-19 pandemic, the insurance distribution business has grown manifold. One of the products of insurance that experienced a spike in market penetration was health insurance.

Current scenario of penetration of Insurance distribution

There has been a need for a sharper and improved distribution strategy for insurance products. Covid-19 has contributed towards accelerating the process of change in distribution models across different industries. Distribution is a critical link to ensure the relationship and reach between the product and the customers. The pandemic drove insurance providers to integrate the best practices of distribution and technology as well. The process of insurance sales, in particular, has faced the most disruption. The traditional means of insurance sales involved face-to-face meetings and the physical presence of the customer at the insurance office. However, with Covid-19, there has been increased adoption of digital technologies thereby allowing virtual and remote sales.

Another aspect that has led to the increased penetration in the insurance landscape is the Bancassurance channel. This channel has highlighted the aspects of increased trust of customers with banks rather than other private entities. In 2019, the IRDAI also introduced a new distribution channel called Common Public Services Centres for the rural market in specific. Overall, these initiatives have resulted in the total number of rural authorized personas to 16,555 as of FY 2020. This has also contributed to the total insurance premium collected in FY 2020 to roughly contribute to one-third of the insurance market amounting to Rs. 253 Crores.

Areas of fallback

One of the main areas that have resulted in resistance towards increased insurance penetration is the lack of education among customers. In addition, customers also consider insurance policies to be an expense rather than a long-term asset. A shift in this perception can help increase penetration across the entire insurance industry. Another reason for this low penetration can be attributed to the complex paperwork in non-digitized processes.

Scope for Improved Market Penetration

Some of the areas that can be considered for potential venturing for insurance companies are the segment of digitization and the process of increasing awareness. Digitization can help eliminate customer resistance due to feasibility, accessibility, conveniences, and complex paperwork. Increasing awareness is also a potential pathway for insurance companies as it can help increase market penetration by providing a different perspective to customers. Ultimately, exploiting these areas can be beneficial for the insurance industry.

Why is Improved Penetration of Insurance Distribution Important?

While the insurance sector in India has been experiencing dynamic growth over the last few years, its global market remains abysmally low. Having an increased penetration of insurance distribution can eventually lead to a positive overall economic impact. The industry of insurance contributes a reasonably large amount to the country’s GDP. Experiencing increased penetration can contribute to an increase in GDP. Moreover, it can also improve the overall benefits received by the customer thereby improving their quality of lives. Ultimately, these benefits can be achieved by increased investment in insurance products and improved digitization.

How can Winsoft’s SmartInsurance help with the process?

Winsoft’s Smart insurance can help with the digitization of the insurance distribution business. It can help increase productivity, profitability, and scalability of the company. The end-to-end life and non-life health insurance distribution software with digital processes helps with increased penetration and ease of use. Some of the other features of Smart Insurance are that it has a flexible open framework and it comes with accurate income calculation and reconciliation to detect income leakages. There is also an advisor portal, operational portal, customer portal, and business MIS. With Smart Insurance, you can also support all your regulatory and audit compliances.

In Conclusion

While the insurance segment has experienced dynamic growth, there is potential for improved market penetration. Digitization is one of the key trends that have been observed in insurance software solutions. However, improved digitization and increase in adoption of awareness programs can be beneficial to enhance market penetration. With Winsoft’s Smart Insurance, you can enhance your digitization, reduce dependencies on policy data from insurance companies, stay compliant, and detect income leakages among others.

The rapid evolution and digital transformation in financial services has completely changed the way primary market operations take place. From digitization of systems to automation of processes, various changes brought about by technology have greatly affected the primary market issuance. Until the early 2000, the primary market operations like initial public offer, rights and bonus issues, preferential issues, etc. were conducted manually. However, with the advent of ASBA, digitization of primary market issuance methods is used.

Evolution of Primary Market Issuance

There has been a significant change in the Indian economy’s environment over the last couple of decades. Earlier, the process of applying for the primary market issuance used to take place manually which made managing the application cumbersome for the financial distributors. With digitization, everything changed!

The distributors can now give more time and dedicated service to their customers. Digitization has made the application process easier, safer and faster.

Time and again regulators seek advice from industry experts and come up with solutions. One such solution that changed the face of primary markets is ASBA. ASBA is the process developed by SEBI for applying to IPOs, Rights issues, and other similar transactions.

ASBA stands for Applications Supported by Blocked Amount. It is an application that enables an investor to block his or her application money from the bank account for a specific issue. This procedure works seamlessly for primary market issuance.

Earlier when digitization was nonexistent, it was difficult to handle the large volume of applications manually. As the primary market issues involve allotment of securities, for numerous applicants who do not get allotment against their subscriptions, the application money needs to be refunded. Such refunds used to take a very long time to get credited back into the applicant’s bank account. Several complaints were received from the investors to speed up the process to avoid funds from being sited idle. The opportunity cost for the market participants is high. It also increased the number of transactions like debiting the money from client’s account for applying in the issue and if there is no allotment or partial allotment then refund of the remaining proceeds to the investor’s account.

These increased numbers of transactions taking place, had also increased the cost of reporting and the risk of mismanagement. The instances of one person’s refund being transferred to another person’s account were often reported. The manual process was bound to human errors. But it came with a cost of discouragement amongst investors from participating in the primary market issues.

To clear out these problems, ASBA was introduced. By using the same technology, in 2016, Winsoft has developed an application called SmartASBA to assist financial distributors like Banks and Brokerage Firms.

By automating the task of processing bulk applications, SmartASBA has saved several thousand hours of the financial distributors and has removed the scope for human errors. As with ASBA, that merely blocks the amount in the account rather than transferring it, the number of transactions dramatically reduced.

With this, the process of initiating the refund has become very easy and seamless. After digitization, this process only involves unblocking the amount, without the need to enter into any redundant set of transactions.

Technologies Backing Digitization of Primary Market Products & Challenges

It was a gradual process to gain investors’ trust in technological advancement in the primary market issuance sector. The technology of ASBA and UPI played major roles in digitization.

As we discussed, ASBA is a system to block the amount in an investor’s bank account. The UPI is a system that seamlessly combines various banking features into a single mobile app. It allows users to manage multiple accounts in one place and make and receive payments using a single application.

Each platform is designed with advanced technologies, ensuring that primary market distributors can give impeccable service to their customers. This combined with SmartASBA ensures smooth flow, from onboarding to handling applications, each function is carried out error-free with Winsoft Technologies.

There are several challenges faced by the participants related to the primary market issuance. Some of these are as follows:

• Unpolished Process  Several times, the investors do not receive the UPI mandate and the process of the application fails. Since multiple technologies and platforms are being used, sometimes they do not work in sync and disrupt the process.
• Complexity Many investors find it confusing to jumble between the applications. From bank or broker’s platform to UPI application to approve the mandate. This process could be made a little more synced in the coming future.

The primary markets are currently embracing new changes, in which adapting to digital trends and technology while also innovating with new business models and products/services is taking place.

The Bottomline

Today, technology and digital transformation in financial services is becoming an essential part of the entire financial market ecosystem. Keeping this in mind, Winsoft Technologies offers an array of advanced solutions via products and services to enhance financial processes. If you are looking for a solution to make things easier then search no more. To know more about our innovative solutions & services connect  with us today!

About Winsoft Technologies

Winsoft Technologies was founded in 1993, with a mission of delivering excellent, creative, cost-effective solutions with the most suitable and latest banking and financial solutions. Winsoft provides business solutions to Fintechs across the Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance (BFSI) industry using leading-edge technology and expertise, and almost all top blue-chip financial distributors are clients of Winsoft.

Journey Towards Providing Game-Changing Solutions

BFSI encompasses organizations that offer a variety of financial products and operations to a broad set of individuals as well as corporate clients. The BFSI software products help entities such as financial distributors and insurance businesses to use digital technologies to make their operations scalable.

Due to the digitization of the BFSI product distribution, it has become easier for consumers to go paperless. Bank accounts can now be fully operated remotely. When an IMPS transaction can be done at the tap of your fingers, why would you want to spend hours standing in line to make the transfer?

Post demonetization, the digital products helped the financial institutions increase in size and influence as there was a shot up in saving flows into equity and debt-oriented mutual funds and life insurance policies. In short the financialisation of savings began at rapid pace. The thrust towards the cashless economy forced all BFSI organizations to partner with digital service providers for disbursement of other banking and financial distribution products such as Demat accounts, insurance policies, Mutual Fund, Direct investments, etc.

Efficient Financial Product Distribution with Winsoft

Back in the late 90s when dematerialization of shares was a new concept in India, people hesitated at first concerning safety but now 100% switch from physical shares to dematerialized shares has happened increasing transaction multiple folds. This demanded a comprehensive system for management. Since 2001, Winsoft’s DeMATrix has been helping clients with the Depository Participant (DP) solution. DeMATrix is an integrated CDSL & NSDL solution that simplifies more than 1 Lakh DP transactions every day.

Dematerialization and stock market investment awareness gave a parallel rise to the mutual funds industry. This sudden boost during that era when markets were touching all-time highs called for a solution that provided ease of operability for fund houses and to maintain customer data in a more efficient and customized way. In 2003, Winsoft’s SmartMutual, a leading mutual fund distribution solution, enabled the mutual fund distributors to operate efficiently. It has automated all the process right from digital customer onboarding to customer dashboard and income calculation for distributor

The smart money had invested huge piles generating immense wealth by the time markets fully recovered. The number of Indian millionaires are increasing very rapidly every year. This paved the way for rapid growth for wealth management business in India. To meet the needs of financial planners and wealth managers, Winsoft developed SmartWealth in 2014 ; a robust software that enables financial managers to manage multiple asset classes seamlessly. It features a front-office interface and a back-office system that works seamlessly.

From 2009, the National Pension Scheme (NPS) was opened for all the citizens of India. For many years, the scheme did not gain popularity, until they came up with pension cum investment plans. This sudden boost in the National Pension Scheme (NPS) and Atal Pension Yojana (APY) investments called for a smart application. That’s when SmartNPS & SmartAPY was born out of necessity in 2015. SmartNPS is an automated solution that enables you to manage your investments into a National Pension scheme. It is easily integrated with various back-office processes. SmartAPY is a web-based solution that simplifies the processing of APY contributions. It features a unique reporting feature that allows users to easily analyze their contributions.

With the introduction of Application Supported by Blocked Accounts (ASBA), investors could safely block their funds in their accounts while making an application to an IPO. This reduced the transaction costs and unnecessary processing of payments from one account to another. Application refunds got faster and accurate with ASBA. When the distributors needed smart applications to manage the processing of the volume of IPO applications, Winsoft developed SmartASBA. It is a platform that enables financial distributors to process IPO, FPO, NFO, and DEBT applications.

With the covid-19 pandemic there was a big realization amongst Indians about the importance of having health and life insurance. The India market offers the immense opportunity for insurers as insurance penetration is very low in India. The insurance distributors were finding ways to increase their reach and hence rapidly adopted digitization.

Winsoft’s Smart Insurance is a comprehensive software solution that provides a complete view of your insurance distribution business. AGILE is a general insurance & life insurance enrolment system and AGENT is a training system that enables the insurance industry to run smoothly.

Due to the pandemic, many people started investing in different asset classes. Increased awareness led to a sudden boost in Sovereign Gold Bonds investment and financial distributors lacked robust platforms to handle the load. That’s when Winsoft provided SmartSGB in 2021 to fulfill clients’ needs by providing an end to end software for Sovereign Gold Bonds.

The Bottomline

Winsoft Technologies have ventured into the arenas of Artificial Intelligence and Machine learning to help banking and financial solutions providers to offer a seamless banking experience. AI’s optical character recognition (OCR) allows user information to be auto-filled by nitpicking relevant information from documentation given as proof at the time of the customer onboarding process. This process minimises fraud and increases the efficiency of their products and services.

To know more about our innovative solutions & services connect with us today!

Technology has advanced enormously in recent years, allowing for innovative solutions that have fundamentally altered the way various industries operate. The wealth management industry is at the forefront in a long line of industries to adapt to and evolve using cutting-edge technological solutions. The days of asset managers and financial advisors spending hours poring over spreadsheets and analysis may be over.

Digital payments are being adopted on a larger scale after research showed 48 billion digital transactions in the year 2020.

For all of us, the past year has been a period of considerable uncertainty. Existing pressures such as evolving consumer expectations, more competition, ongoing regulatory changes, rising expenses, and squeezed profit margins has just been exacerbated due to the pandemic. Enterprising enterprises, on the other hand, are in a great position to capitalize on their strengths, adapt to industrial and social changes, reduce their cost base, and expand market share if they are supported by the correct technology foundation.

The entire financial landscape now shows promise of simpler solutions for complex fiscal difficulties, thanks to this beneficial growth in the wealth management sector. As an investor, you now have access to an environment that allows you to make use of cutting-edge technology to better manage your capital.

What Has Changed Because Of Technology?

So, how can traditional businesses deal with all of these pressures? Organizations that are willing to adapt will benefit greatly from changing market conditions. Customer loyalty and success in wealth management are built on good customer connections and trust in the company’s skills, all of which are backed up by a flawless customer experience.

Customers’ expectations for the online experience have risen as a result of increased digital literacy across all generations. Customer has increased demand for information and services that are always available, accessible from a variety of devices, and have a uniform look and feel across all touch points.

Due to the pandemic’s limits on our normal behaviour, current tendencies have intensified. Customers today expect the same slick digital experience from all providers, including wealth managers, thanks to the same experience provided by other businesses. According to a Salesforce study, 62% of buyers say their interactions with one industry influence their expectations of others.

These expectations, combined with the ease with which consumers may investigate financial products and services online, have resulted in a decrease in long-term brand loyalty. Customers are now more likely to transfer providers if they are dissatisfied with the service provided by one.

Wealth managers are well-positioned to construct customer-centric operational models that place users at the centre of decision-making to satisfy the increasing demands of the market, customers, and regulators by building on their existing relationships.

Investing in new IT infrastructure may help organisations remain competitive, manage risk, and maintain data security while also lowering costs and increase operational efficiencies.

Technology has also helped in incorporating personalization in wealth management. It allows a deeper understanding of your financial habits and provides customizations accordingly.

Digital wealth management solutions with “Do it yourself portals” that are well-designed are already gaining traction. Wealth management portals that are well integrated with global investment channels take full advantage of data analytics, reporting, and dashboards which assist both wealth managers and investors in evaluating all of the options available to them and making the best wealth management decisions possible.

Complete Wealth Management Suite By Winsoft Technologies

The Wealth Management solution from Winsoft Technologies is a multi-module, integrated platform that allows you to provide best-in-class financial investment to all of your clients. SmartWealth, SmartMutual, and SmartSGB are part of the Wealth Management suite of applications.

These solutions are web enabled and are developed with the most up-to-date technologies. The technology employed allows for the whole process of paperless client onboarding along with dashboard of investment.

Here is the brief about solutions provided by Winsoft Technologies for wealth management.

SmartWealth:

It is an end-to-end Wealth Management Software solution that works with a variety of asset classes such as mutual funds, Bonds, SGB, fixed income/debts/NCDs and alternative products such as PMS, AIF, SP and so on. It has completely integrated back office, front office, and customer interface modules.

SmartMutual:

It is the most popular mutual fund business solution being used by mid-sized distributors to large distributors including India’s top MF distributors. It has a back office module for central operations, a Sales/RM interface for branch operations, and a customer interface.

SmartSGB:

It is an end-to-end processing module for requests of Sovereign Gold Bonds starting from digital onboarding of clients to bond purchase, redemption and cancellation of investment. Flexible and intuitive user interface with API based framework for easy integration with digital channels like the Internet and mobile phones.

To know more about the advanced solutions for wealth management connect with us today!

Technology has changed the way we look at everything; be its listening to songs of our choice to make any investment decision for achieving our financial goals. Technologies have changed the face of the BFSI industry. Due to the pandemic, and various restrictions multitudes of banks and FIs are modernizing and improvising their infrastructure to support digital banking. The digital capability of facilitating smooth customer on-boarding including KYC, lending, sales automation, and many other services has been of immense use for banking and FIs service providers to offer seamless services to their customers.

There has been a massive rise in the Fintech investments in India as compared to before covid days. 33 new unicorns have emerged since the beginning of 2021 and as per this rate, India will manage to get more than 100 unicorns by 2022. Start-ups have been started offering innovative technologies to reduce the asymmetry of information between financial institutions and investors. Fintech SaaS and Insurance technology entities witnessed total investments of 145 million US Dollars and 215 million US Dollars in the year 2020 respectively. If we check today, India has more than 50 Fintech entities whose total valuation would be more than 100 million dollars.

The GoI’s BharatNet mission is driving internet penetration across remote regions paving the way for technology-driven BFSI services amongst them. The technological marvel of UPI has further reduced the cost of transactions as well as the turnaround time for any transaction. India also witnessed a surge in biometric transactions driven by AePS i.e Aadhaar-enabled Payment System amongst remote regions. These transactions are currently to the tune of over 200 million every month.

Retail investors in Tier II and Tier III cities have begun to tap advanced investment products such as Mutual Funds and Direct Equity. NSE has seen a steady growth of 11% CAGR in its investor category over the decade to reach to 2.78 crores. On the other hand, there are about 4.58 crores BSE investors at present, a figure that has grown by 26% in the past year. This is mainly because of investment done through trading applications as well as Robo- Advisory investment engines that give personalized investment advices using data analytical tools and Artificial Intelligence to interpret the data for precise and accurate results.

AI (Artificial Intelligence and Machine Leaning)

Technologies like AI and ML has successfully helped banking and financial service providers to provide frictionless and innovative banking solutions. AI’s optical character recognition (OCR) enables auto-filling user details from their document proofs during the customer onboarding process. The tools used in AI and ML are excellent in preventing fraud at the same time offering automated product recommendations to the customers.

Financial APIs

Financial APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) are one of the most important technologies used extensively in digital banking. API enables the companies to open up their application data and functionality to external third-party developers, business partners, and internal departments within their companies to connect with the application and allow interactions, transactions, payments, and sharing of information happen. It takes care of operations like KYC, the credit assessment, retrieving information while filling out forms, e-sign, and so on. There are certain specific open APIs that allow third-party vendors to access consumer accounts, known as open banking.

Currently Winsoft is using API based technology in its applications like SmartWealth, SmartMutual, SmartNPS & SmartASBA for exposing and consuming different set of APIs to execute various tasks digitally.

Cloud technologies

Customer on-boarding rates have increased on account of digital banking. But with a growing number of customers there also comes an increased amount of data. Cloud technology is thus an optimal way to store, organize, and retrieve data as and when needed at the same time build essential statistics. Banks and FIs use Cloud based technology to build smarter marketing and sales strategies to serve their customers better and cross-sell relevant products to them.

Winsoft has been using Cloud Technologies for a very long. It is been implemented in our SmartMutual, SmartWealth, SmartNPS & SmartASBA applications.

Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) use the intelligent automation to drive efficiency, remove repetitions, and improve customer satisfaction by providing fast and efficient services in the BFSI industry. RPA is transforming the way banks can operate improving the other parameters such as cost-reduction, accuracy, compliance and operational efficiency.

Winsoft is currently in the process of launching solutions to implement RPA for various processes.

Are you looking for a scheme that will take care of your financial needs after you retire?

If you are, then the National Pension Scheme by the Government of India is your answer!

One of the most popular ways of securing your retirement period is the National Pension Scheme. Let us understand everything about NPS and how Winsoft Technologies’ Smart NPS software can help financial product distributors (NPS POP) to deliver it to their customers.

What is National Pension Scheme a.k.a NPS?

The National Pension Scheme (NPS) is the government of India’s program that aims to grant retirement advantages to any or all Indian residents, together with those within the unorganized sector. NPS is a voluntary contribution program that is market-linked and managed by skilled fund managers. It is regulated and administered by the PFRDA or Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority under the PFRDA Act, 2013.

Individual subscribers’ contributions to the National Pensions Scheme are added until retirement, and the corpus grows through market-linked returns. It is an attempt towards a sustainable solution to the problem of providing adequate retirement income to every citizen of India

At least 40% of the contribution is used to acquire a lifetime pension via the purchase of an annuity at retirement. The remaining payments are paid in one lump sum to the subscriber.

Benefits of NPS

Every National Pension System (NPS) subscriber is assigned a Permanent Retirement Account Number (PRAN), which is unique for each. The Government of India has made the program secure and has offered several appealing perks to NPS account holders to encourage savings.

The Following Are Some Of The Advantages Of Having An NPS Account:

Carefully Regulated: NPS is regulated by Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority, with transparent investment norms & regular monitoring and performance review of fund managers by NPS Trust

No Compulsion: It is a voluntary scheme open to all Indian nationals. In your NPS account, you can pay any amount at any time.

Compliant To Your Needs: You have the freedom to choose or change your POP (Point of Presence), investing pattern, and fund manager. This allows you to optimize returns based on your comfort level with various asset classes (equity, corporate bonds, government securities, and alternative assets) and fund managers.

Fits Into Your Budget: NPS is one of the most cost-effective investment options accessible. The starting amount of investment is lesser than many investment schemes.

Portability:  One of the best features of an NPS account is even if you change your work, city, or state, your NPS account or PRAN will remain the same.

Switch To NPS: You can shift your superannuation funds to your NPS account without incurring any tax consequences. This is possible after receiving consent from the appropriate authorities.

Tax Benefits: Through NPS you can avail many tax benefits and exemptions.

How Can Winsoft’s Smart NPS Simplify The Process for POP?

Smart NPS is a product from Winsoft Technologies which is meant for NPS POP’s (Point of Presence i.e. NPS Distributors). It ensures ease in front-office and back-office operations automation for the National Pension Scheme product distribution and management. It not only ensures ease but also eliminates the tedious and time-consuming paperwork.

Just to give glimpse of Smart NPS capability:

• Manages PRAN registration & generation processes
• Covers Corporate registrations & Contributions
• Manages online and offline requests of NPS Subscription & Contribution
• Digital file generation for NSDL(National Securities Depository Limited ) & Fintech CRA
  reporting
• Consumable APIs available to Integrate with Third Party Application (Mobile Apps)
• Business MIS & Regulatory Reports as required by PFRDA

Winsoft Technologies Has Redefined Financial Services!

Established in 1993, Winsoft Technologies has been offering unique technology-based products and services to the financial services industry. It focuses on niche sets of products including Wealth Management and Financial Product distribution solutions.

With 150+ specialists and 28 years of track record with esteemed customers, Winsoft Technologies is a trustworthy name in the industry.

It is creating a benchmark every day with its advanced products like the Smart NPS software. The combination of technical expertise with subject matter expertise in financial product distribution is what sets them apart. The company has a strong financial performance and has been moving forward in direction of growth and expansion.

Let Winsoft help you deliver and manage financial products with ease!