Hong Kong is the company’s second location in Asia, as they expand to match regional growth in the life insurance industry. FRS previously announced the opening of their South East Asian headquarters at Menara Darussalam, Kuala Lumpur.

Matthew Baldwin, Head of Asia, Financial Risk Solutions commented “It is a privilege for FRS to have the Tánaiste, Simon Coveney TD open our new Hong Kong office. This marks a exciting time for the company as we expand further to service our clients in Asia’s thriving life insurance market”.

Statistics released by the Insurance Agent Registration Board (IARB) showed that in 2016, the total gross premiums of the Hong Kong insurance industry increased by 20.7 percent to $451.7 billion. Research published from Munich Re puts growth in Asia’s emerging markets at above 10 percent for 2017-2018. The same research placed Asian market share of the global insurance industry at 21.4 percent by 2025.

Baldwin continued “Our Robotic Process Automation (RPA) fund administration software has been well received with regional life insurers. We are extremely encouraged by this response in the large populous Asian markets, where pensions are a huge agenda point for both government and individuals making appropriate provision for their old age.”

Growing Market Share in Europe:
Meanwhile in Europe, PRIIPs (Packaged Retail and Insurance-based Investment Products) regulation came into effect January 2018, and is driving client onboarding to FRS’ PRIIPs solution. Uniquely, the FRS software caters for the complex requirements of both fund of funds PRIIPs and open architecture-wrapped products. FRS’ core unit pricing investment admin software solution is also active, with several new clients currently on-boarding their life assurance books of business to the software.

In line with other FRS software, the PRIIPs and unit pricing investment admin solutions are available on-premise or hosted in the Cloud using Microsoft Azure.

Strategic Growth in Emerging Markets:
FRS is currently working with five clients in the Middle East and several other regional providers are considering Invest|Pro.

The emerging markets of Asia and the Middle East share many of the same challenges, and FRS software is well positioned to assist in both regions. The Hong Kong office opening comes amid the month-long Hong Kong and Macau Irish Festival, centred around St. Patrick’s Day on March 17th. The festival celebrates Irish culture along with strengthening business and investment links. It also comes on the heels of Cathay Pacific announcing direct flights from Hong Kong to Dublin four times a week from June 2018.