Tangerine is positioned to become leading provider of technology-enabled financial solutions in Africa
Tangerine is positioned to become Africa's leading provider of technology-enabled financial solutions
Tangerine, a leading financial services and technology platform, officially launched its financial service product offerings on Wednesday, 7th July, 2021, during a press conference. Livingstone Magorimbo, Head Life Insurance, Tangerine Nigeria, Dapo Akisanya, Head Pensions, Tangerine Nigeria, and Ibitunde Balogun, Head Commercial, Tangerine Nigeria, addressed the press at the press conference, introducing Tangerine and discussing the company's agenda and future growth plans.
Tangerine was established in September 2019 following Verod Capital Management's ("Verod") acquisition of a 100 percent equity stake in Metropolitan Life Insurance Nigeria. Verod is a leading private equity firm focused on growth companies in Anglophone West Africa. This was immediately followed by a series of strategic mergers and acquisitions, including the acquisition of ARM Life by Metropolitan Life to create the fourth largest life insurer in Nigeria – Tangerine Life Insurance Limited; and Verod's acquisition of Law Union and Rock, one of the leading general insurance companies in the space, which was rebranded as Tangerine General Insurance Limited. AXA Mansard has since been rebranded as Tangerine Pensions, and the two PFAs have begun the process of merging. The combination will create a formidable competitor with extensive geographic reach.
Tangerine Life, Tangerine General, Tangerine Pensions, and Tangerine Money are the current subsidiaries of Tangerine. Tangerine is positioned to be Africa's preferred one-stop financial solutions provider, leveraging a technology-driven, flexible, high-access platform to drive business across all financial services segments in Africa, thereby increasing financial inclusion, facilitating wealth creation, and facilitating wealth protection.
Dapo Akisanya, Head Pensions, Tangerine Nigeria, stated at the press conference, "In less than two years, we have successfully acquired and rebranded several businesses, firmly establishing Tangerine." In addition, we have made significant progress in repositioning our businesses for growth by assembling a strong, agile, and experienced team that shares our strategic perspective. In terms of recapitalization, the Nigerian insurance industry is currently undergoing a paused recapitalization process that aimed to increase the minimum statutory capital requirements for life and general insurance businesses from N2 billion to N8 billion and N3 billion to N10 billion, respectively. This recapitalization process has already been completed for our two insurance businesses, Tangerine Life and Tangerine General”.
Speaking about their plans to increase financial inclusion and impact the Nigerian socioeconomic landscape, he continued, "At Tangerine, we believe in democratizing access to financial services and products. We do this by developing simple, value-adding products that are easy to understand and that leverage technology to increase accessibility, thereby assisting millions of uninsured Nigeriens."
More Plans of Tangerine
Tangerine Head Life Insurance Nigerian Livingstone Magorimbo discussed plans to establish Tangerine as Africa's preferred provider of financial solutions through increased efficiency, value addition, and growth.
“Over the next three to four years, our goal is to build strong businesses that are profitable and have a reasonable share of the larger market in each of the segments in which we operate. We intend to accomplish this by ensuring the efficiency of the assets acquired in Nigeria and the full realization of all merger synergies. Additionally, we intend to create value through customer acquisition, agent network expansion, cross-selling to our existing customer base, and efficiency improvements. Real-time claims processing is one of our target deliverables as we look for operational efficiencies to add value to our customers and distribution partners”.
Mr. Magorimbo also discussed Tangerine's future growth and expansion plans, stating, "We believe our future growth will come from the retail segment, where we have made significant investments in understanding market needs, as well as in the technology and people necessary to support us going forward." Likewise, we intend to expand Tangerine's presence outside of Nigeria. By 2024, we intend to have a presence in at least eight African countries”.
Tangerine's financial services ecosystem is based on technology. Ibitunde Balogun, Head Commercial, Tangerine Nigeria, commented on Tangerine's approach to product development, "We have merged deep consumer insights and cutting-edge technology to create a range of carefully tailored and relevant products that create value by maximizing each individual's financial potential, offering a unique blend of life insurance coverage, pensions, and wealth management."
“At Tangerine, we believe that properly executed digital transformation can contribute to the creation of a frictionless environment for customer interaction. This is the guiding principle behind our agile infrastructure. We've created a one-stop shop for customers that includes a front-end user interface that enables seamless interaction; single sign-on for our mobile app; a core operating platform that is tailored to each business and capable of cross-selling to other businesses within regulatory constraints; and the ability to seamlessly integrate Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to facilitate partnerships. Furthermore, we've developed intelligence capabilities through the use of business logic and artificial intelligence (AI), while adhering to Nigeria's Data Protection Regulations and other local data privacy rules imposed by industry-specific regulators. AI is used to comprehend and anticipate customer needs and preferences, thereby optimizing value addition across all touchpoints,” he added.
Tangerine is built on a robust, integrated, and scalable digital platform that was built to support the growing financial solutions ecosystem. In addition, it is led by a highly capable and experienced management team. Tangerine is thus uniquely positioned for rapid growth and impact.
