2012 News Releases

Hong Kong — Manulife has introduced an e-platform enabling its advisors to help customers conduct financial planning analysis and complete insurance applications electronically, opening up a whole new experience in instant and personalized financial services.

Once connected online, the e-platform provides advisors and their customers with a streamlined financial planning process that couples comprehensive analysis with increased efficiency. Recognizing that each customer has unique life goals and requirements, it features a proprietary module that helps to review life-stage needs and examine what-if scenarios.

It also allows access to a wealth of timely market updates and product information, including global economic indices, health care costs and overseas education expenses. Taken together, these features allow advisors to generate financial proposals customized to their customers’ personal profiles.

Mark Richmond, Manulife’s Vice President for Agency Operations, said: “The introduction of this new e-platform demonstrates our commitment to the pursuit of financial planning excellence. Making use of the wide-ranging financial planning functions of the platform, our advisors can now better engage with our customers to understand and fulfill their financial planning needs.”

The e-platform also pioneers the concept of submitting, via the iPad, a life insurance application electronically signed by the customer. Having directly integrated with the company’s back-end system, the e-platform streamlines the insurance application by simplifying the information and document submission process.     

George Chew, Manulife’s Vice President and Head of Individual Financial Products, commented, “The e-platform has signaled a new direction for financial planning and insurance application experience. It is designed in a way that not only promotes interactions between our advisors and customers, it also cuts down the manual process of traditional insurance applications. As a result, customers will gain quality access to more efficient, responsive and personalized services.” 

Each feature on Manulife’s e-platform is tailor-made with its customers and financial advisors in mind. Unlike a traditional paper-driven application process that can easily lead to handwriting errors and fields being missed, the e-platform is equipped with a customer data pre-population feature and built-in system intelligence to help pre-validate the data, thus minimizing the hassle and the time wasted in following up for complete applications. 

The e-platform also works seamlessly on the iPad. With the iPad’s camera function, supporting documents such as identity cards and residential address proof can be captured and submitted through the platform. All information is transmitted via highly secured SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) encryption. An SMS confirmation will be sent to customers’ mobile phones immediately after form submission, giving them complete peace of mind. Financial advisors can also monitor the application status, which further enhances the speed and quality of the service.

Such innovative deployment of technology reduces reliance on highly paper-driven processes to ensure a greener environment and thus help the company to deliver on its corporate social responsibility obligations.

The e-platform is available for use now in applying for certain life insurance products, and will be made available for other products in phases. It is currently being rolled out to all financial advisors on a staged basis.

About Manulife (International) Limited
Manulife (International) Limited is a member of the Manulife Financial group of companies.

Manulife Financial is a leading Canada-based financial services group with principal operations in Asia, Canada and the United States. In 2012, we celebrate 125 years of providing clients strong, reliable, trustworthy and forward-thinking solutions for their most significant financial decisions. Our international network of employees, agents and distribution partners offers financial protection and wealth management products and services to millions of clients. We also provide asset management services to institutional customers. Funds under management by Manulife Financial and its subsidiaries were C$512 billion (HK$3,976 billion) as at March 31, 2012. The Company operates as Manulife Financial in Canada and Asia and primarily as John Hancock in the United States.

Manulife Financial Corporation trades as ‘MFC’ on the TSX, NYSE and PSE, and under ‘945’ on the SEHK. Manulife Financial can be found on the Internet at manulife.com.

Media Contact:
Jacqueline Kam / Crystal Tse
Manulife (International) Limited
Tel: (852) 2202 1284 / 2510 3130
Fax: (852) 2234 6875
Jacqueline_tm_kam@manulife.com/
Crystal_ym_tse@manulife.com