AXA Singapore to adopt Kyckr technology for new insurance services

Regulatory technology company Kyckr (ASX: KYK) has signed up one of the world’s leading insurance companies, AXA Insurance Pte Ltd or AXA Singapore, to adopt its application-programming interface for the development of new insurance services.

Kyckr today announced the inking of a master services agreement and statement of work, which follows several proofs of concepts between the two companies over the last six months.

AXA Singapore is part of the French insurance giant AXA Group and has been present in the Singapore since the late 1960s. It currently has more than 300,000 insurance customers in the South East Asian island nation.

Its adoption of Kyckr’s application-programming interface is expected to enable greater automation in the development of new insurance-related services, with the technology embedding real-time direct access to more than 200 corporate registries globally from a single user-interface.

According to Kyckr, the collection of information for underwriting of commercial insurance is performed manually and is “both costly and time consuming for the insurer, customer and intermediary”.

“Currently, information requires submitting, reviewing and verification using external verification sources before a quote can be issued, resulting in a delay of up to two weeks before a customer can receive a quote and policy,” the company stated.

“By using the Kyckr API for direct primary source data, this turnaround time can potentially be reduced to one to three days,” it said.

Under the signed deal, Kyckr will receive initial revenue of S$380,000 (A$400,000), with the value incorporating technology services and the provision of digital data.

Additional revenue is anticipated to follow as services are expanded across Asia, Kyckr said.

AXA is due to rollout the project in the first half of the 2020 financial year with revenue expected to be realised from this current first quarter.

Delivery will begin in Singapore, then across other select countries in Asia.

“Know-Your-Customer verification is becoming increasingly critical to companies and we will continue to collaborate with leading global firms to embed our unique registry network and provide clients with the most up-to-date and legally accurate information for customer verification,” Kyckr chief executive officer Ian Henderson said.

“The fact that one of the world’s largest insurers has committed to leveraging our technical know-how to deliver value-enhancing insurance products is a great testament to our technology,” he added.

By midday, shares in Kyckr were up 27.5% to $0.051.