Sun Life, BPI forge tie-up

The Sun Life Financial Philippines has not only opened its third financial store along Paseo de Roxes in Makati, but it even tapped the expertise of the Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI).

The Sun Life financial store will service the needs of the investing public for its business line of life insurance, pre-need and mutual fund. It is somewhat similar to the business centers introduced by the country’s banking system to address the needs of its banking clients aside of the traditional bank branches.

Individual or institutional investors can come to the financial store and not only learn about the three financial services but also transact business in the “three-in-one” store. The other two “stores” are in Greenhills and Quezon City.

Sun Life president and chief executive officer Henry Joseph Herrera said that they have been getting a lot of inquiry about their mutual funds especially the balanced fund, a combination of fixed income and the equities market.

The balanced fund is a relatively “safe” fund as it can benefit from the strong equities market and get a little “protection” from a weakened fixed income market, which is the present conddition of the markets today.

It allows extremely safe investments when the fixed income market is strong as usually characterized by high interest rates with a little earnings from a weaker equities market.

Fixed income investments are safe albeit lower returns, while the equities market give greater returns albeit with corresponding higher risks due to volatility.

Herrera said that the financial store with its customer service facilitators can educate those interested when they drop by the store, aside from learning about life insurance and pre-need products.

Sun Life is ranked third best performing in the life insurance industry, ranked third best performing in the mutual fund industry, and ranked among the top 10 in the pre-need industry.

Meanwhile, the tie-up with BPI will allow Sun Life to use the bank’s extensive remittance facilities within the 700 branches nationwide.

“The Sun Life Financial and BPI partnership allows clients to pick up their loan proceeds and other financial transactions with BPI branches, have their checks delivered right to their doorsteps, or credit the money to their existing BPI account,” Henry Joseph Herrera, Sun Life president and chief executive officer said, during the inauguration of the Makati financial store.

Soon, the clients will also get text message alerts as a result of the BPI and Globe Telecommunications banking services system. The text messages will advise recipients when the funds can be claimed, together with the reference number to be presented upon collection.

Likewise, the use of BPI’s remittance services eliminated the process of transmitting uncrossed checks while the bill’s risk of loss while in transit is reduced.           — Ted Torres