Acquired in 2019 by the Groupe APICIL, the third-largest social protection group in France, OneLife is capitalising on its digital DNA and a strong knowledge of its eight markets. An interview with its CEO, Antonio Corpas. 

 

Can you introduce OneLife in a few words? 

For 30 years, OneLife has been a pioneer in the free provision of services in the field of life assurance. We cover eight markets: Luxembourg - our headquarters, France and Belgium - our historical markets, the Iberian Peninsula, and the Nordics (Denmark, Sweden, and Finland). We have about 150 employees. In 2021 we had a historic 30% growth in new premiums, reaching more than €1 billion. With a B2B2C positioning partners are at the heart of our system, whether they be brokers, wealth management advisors, private banks, or family offices. We are committed to developing strong and lasting partnerships by supporting them in their mission toward end clients. This requires, above all, an ability to listen, adapt, and innovate on an ongoing basis.

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“Our ability to design tailor-made financial and wealth solutions has been the hallmark of OneLife for 30 years”

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How are your partners' needs changing? 

They want to have a competitive investment offering that is as diversified as possible: our open architecture connects them to our network of 90 custodian banks and over 250 asset managers for total customisation. We also have in-house expertise integrating non-traditional assets such as real estate and private equity, which are increasingly being considered to diversify and de-correlate portfolios from the turmoil of the markets. Our partners also want to have a good command of the data relating to these assets for optimal management. This is where we offer comprehensive and transparent reporting solutions. Lastly, they want to benefit from wealth planningexpertise, particularly in the cases of international mobility or succession. Our know-how is based on the sum of our local legal and tax expertise, enabling us to assist our partners and their clients in designing compliant and scalable cross-border solutions. Our ability to design tailor-made financial and wealth management solutions has been the hallmark of OneLife for 30 years. 

 

What are the challenges and opportunities you currently identify? 

In terms of opportunities, we already have the electronic signature. Starting in 2023 we will be able to extend the 100% digitalised and automated processes already in place in our French branch. We will be able to take advantage of the Groupe APICIL’s proven tools, increasing the reliability and speed of our services. We are also developing connections to certain custodian banks via SWIFT. On the challenges that are also opportunities, I am thinking of the ever-increasing compliance and reporting requirements. To this end, we are developing extremely effective tools for both our teams and our partners (integration of compliance tools into the digital workflow, automation of reports, alerts, KYC updates, etc.). Finally, there is SFDR for which we are dependent on certain players for the categorisation of financial products. However, we have started to collect our clients' sustainability preferences and are working on additional reporting and disclosures from 2023. As a company, we are committed to sustainability and the well-being of our employees: We are working with our employees to reduce our carbon footprint and improve the quality of life at work.