ADB provides $750,000 grant for Microinsurance development in China & Mongolia

Microfinance Focus, Sep 1, 2010: The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is providing a two-year $750,000 grant from the ADB-administered Regional Cooperation and Integration Fund to examine market supply and demand for microinsurance in People’s Republic of China and Mongolia. The grant will address policy, regulatory and institutional barriers in the region’s Microinsurance sector.

ADB will work with the Access to Insurance Initiative (A2II), a global program launched in 2009 with the International Association of Insurance Supervisors (IAIS) – the international standard setting body for insurance regulation and supervision. The Initiative seeks to link development agencies and industry supervisors to promote expanded insurance services to the poor worldwide.

A Memorandum of Agreement has been signed under which the German development agency and secretariat of the initiative, GTZ, will provide co-financing of about $178,000 and will engage in and support work agreed with ADB and A2II. The ADB, A2II, and GTZ teams will work with the Chinese Insurance Regulatory Commission and Mongolia Financial Regulatory Commission.

“Our agreement with GTZ makes us the first international financial institution to effectively buy into the Access to Insurance Initiative to expand its work into specific countries, and we are providing significant resources to help regulators and insurance companies better understand and promote the responsible growth of microinsurance,” said Betty Wilkinson, Senior Finance Specialist in the East Asia Department.

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