So that’s the first question. And the second question is about recovery. Because I don’t know, I count to this simple calculation. So if we compare MPP last year with that in the 2018, so we are about 60% of 2018. But there’s a lot of economic assumption changes involved here. So but just wonder if management can give us a ballpark number of what’s the 2023 business level versus 2018. So what’s the pace of recovery for each region? Thank you.
Anil Wadhwani: Thanks for your question, Michelle. So I’m going to ask Dennis to talk specifically on Singapore. But just to start with the Singapore question, it is a quality franchise. It’s multi channel. And it was illustrated in the strong rebound that we were able to show in the second half of last year versus the first. Remember, we took the hard steps to be to pivot from single premium, which as was a star offering in 2022 to regular premium. And we do that pretty quickly. And now the business has pivoted towards regular premium and you’re starting to kind of see the growth that we were able to demonstrate in the second half. But I’m just going to stop there and have Dennis provide you some extra color.
Dennis Tan: Thanks very much, Anil. Thanks, Michelle, for the question. So Singapore market last year, it was kind of like a tale of two halves. So if you look at the first half of the year, there was softening in the entire industry, given the high inflation and high interest rate environment that moved really, really quickly. But the second half of the year, there was a very, very strong rebound and we saw quarter on quarter growth. And this came across from a couple of things that we did. So firstly, it’s actually a whole pivot towards the regular premium business. Because of the softening of the single premium, we decided to come really, really hard pivoting towards regular premium. And that saw sales numbers grow 32%. And in addition to that, we also launched our Prudential Financial Advisors, which is a holistic wealth planning business.
And that talks to your question in terms of what are the growth opportunities going forward as we’ll, because we feel clearly that that will be a fantastic growth engine for us. On top of supporting the Thai Agency Force, the Open Architecture Bank Assurance business, we decided also to invest in this Open Architecture Financial Planning Unit. So we launched that in April of last year. And within a short nine-month period, we ended last year, December, with 500 advisors, 500 wealth planning advisors in that unit. And that continues the momentum in terms of recruitment going into this year. I think one final point is your point on so-called MCV, right, into Singapore in that sense. We already are doing that, right? So for these foreigners who are coming into Singapore, the first port of call tends to be the banks.
They’ll set up their banking relationship with the local or the foreign banks in Singapore. And as our two big bank partners, Standard Chartered Bank as well as UOB Banks, they would have not just the onshore team, but also they have the offshore desk by countries, by region. So we have been working very closely with them to kind of tap on that. And that is an ongoing thing and definitely will also be a key driver going into the future as well. Back to you, Anil.
Anil Wadhwani: Thank you. Thank you, Dennis. Michelle, coming to your second question. So you’re absolutely right. The sales did exceed the 2019 levels, but the NBP still has a bit of a runway. And even if you compare it to 2018 levels, I believe the new business profit still has some runway. Part of that is interest rates, as you rightly pointed out. But it’s kind of quite evident from the presentation that we’ve shared that in many markets, we still have an opportunity to go back to 2018-19 levels, if not exceed it, including the likes of Indonesia, CPL, which obviously had a challenging year in 2023. Even Hong Kong, for that matter, from an NBP perspective, it is still not at the levels that we’d experienced in 2018. So the answer is that opportunity exists across greater China and across the ASEAN market. And we haven’t even spoken about India, which is now slated to be one of the fastest, if not the fastest market across Asia in terms of GDP growth.
Patrick Bowes: Thank you. Just conscious we have nine more questions online. There’s a few that have come in online as well. We’ll respond to the technical questions. There’s one on RFRS yield curves, which is very technical. We’ll come back to the individual on that one. But maybe we’ll go back to Sebastian. We’ll go back to the next call on the line, please.
Operator: The next question is from Larissa Van Deventer from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Larissa Van Deventer: Thank you and good morning. Two from me, please. My apologies for the voice. The first on margin expansion. You’ve spoken about health growing 20% year-on-year and the rebalancing of bank assurance relative to the other portfolio. On a four-year view to your 2027 benchmarks, do you believe that it is possible for margins to expand? How do you see the margin involved within that context? And the other one, if I can just get back to the very first question we had on Hong Kong. We had three years of pent up savings, but arguably only one year of critical illness riders coming through in last year’s volumes. Can you give us any sense of how much of last year’s volumes were pent up savings that are unlikely to recur? Thanks.
