These should support at least four key objectives, to enhance access to insurance; increase efficiencies in claims processing; promote fair competition and provide additional choice for consumers as well as provide a strong mechanism to prevent frauds and 3/5  BIS central bankers' speeches  cheats. This is important not only to deliver a superior customer experience, but also to control leakages, manage costs and ensure sustainability over a long term. It will also position the industry to compete and position itself more effectively as we move forward as the disruptive forces of competition, including from non-traditional players, continue to gain traction. It will also prevent leakages arising from abuses, misrepresentation and fraudulent claims. In the immediate term, the industry needs to set its sights on creating a convenient and seamless first-loss-notification process that leverages on shared infrastructure. Such a process should eliminate intermediate processes that are currently adding costs and enabling abuse and fraud to take place. Certain infrastructure should not be considered as a competitive edge. We have raised this issue many times. Sharing infrastructure and information among industry players is very important, but efforts towards this have been quite disappointing. The establishment of the ISM Fraud Intelligence System marks a significant first step in this direction. Deploying the latest data analytics and network analyses, the Fraud Intelligence System is a milestone in the industry’s efforts to combat fraud, especially in the motor business.
In terms of the migration to e-payments, the insurance and takaful sector is a key sector where the usage of cheques is still prevalent. In 2016, 2.3 million cheques were issued by insurance and takaful companies while 9.8 million cheques were collected by such companies from their customers. While good progress has been made this year with the decline in cheque collection accelerating from -0.5% in 2016 to -22.1% in the first 7 months of 2017, more effective and creative measures are needed to drive cheque usage to negligible levels. To this end, Bank Negara Malaysia has recently concluded a consultation exercise with the industry on the implementation of an ePayment Incentive Fund Framework (ePIF). Under the framework, insurance companies shall set aside RM3 for every cheque issued and RM1 for every cheque collected to be used as incentives to encourage their customers, agents, service providers and government agencies to migrate to e-payments. The current practice where agents collect premiums from customers in cash and make payment to insurance and takaful companies using the agencies’ own cheques or credit cards should stop. The industry should promote greater prudence and transparency in the collection of customer premiums by facilitating customers to make direct payments to the insurance and takaful companies. To this end, the industry equipping agents with mobile point-of-sale (mPOS) or mobile apps to collect payment directly from customers should be the norm. Thirdly, the industry needs to collaborate and invest in key market infrastructure and arrangements.