EP 93 – Mark Wales – co-Founder of Galileo Platforms – At the Heart of Our Platform Is a Blockchain

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Michael Waitze worked in Global Finance for more than 20 years, employed by firms like Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, primarily in Tokyo.  Michael lived and worked in Tokyo from February 1990 until December 2011.  Michael always maintained a particular focus on how technology could be used to make businesses more efficient and to drive P/L growth. Michael is a leader in the digital media space, building one of the biggest and fastest-growing podcast listener bases in the region.  His AsiaTechPodcast.com show has listeners in more than 170 countries and his company, Michael Waitze Media produces some of Asia’s most popular podcasts.

Guest
Mark Wales

Mark is the CEO and Co-Founder of Galileo Platforms, an InsurTech company focused on Asia. He has over 30 years’ experience in Information Technology in the financial services industry, substantially in Life Insurance, Wealth Management, Funds Management and Investment Banking. Mark has held senior executive positions in leading banks, insurance companies and consulting organisations. He has a strong track record in IT strategy and architecture and a reputation for working with businesses to create transformational IT projects that deliver real business value and results.

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Asia InsurTech Podcast spoke with Mark Wales, co-founder of Galileo Platforms, a B2B platform technology company. Mark has over 30 years of experience in financial service IT and spent the past 16 years in Hong Kong and Singapore. After working for major international corporations including ING, he co-founded Galileo in 2016. Galileo’s blockchain powered platform connects participants in the insurance ecosystem providing a shared source of truth, enabling them to deliver a straight through, real-time client experience. 

Emerging Asia presents major opportunities to capture new customers. With growing income, millions of people are entering the addressable space to sell financial products but many insurers struggle to capture this emerging customer segment. Offering small premium products at scale requires a high degree of digitisation. 

In mature markets, on the other hand, the challenges are different. According to Mark, customers are looking for more flexibility and tailor-made products. However, outdated legacy systems are often what holds insurance incumbents back from offering more flexibility and to connect with digital sales channels. 

Mark explains how Galileo works with insurers to help them digitise their backend and distribution system despite having legacy systems. He points out the advantages of blockchain solutions and having one source of truth. Blockchain can also be used to regulate sharing of data which is especially interesting for personal medical data and with the rise of data privacy regulation such as European GDPR.  It is also the perfect fit for parametric insurance products for low income groups as the claims process can be fully automated.


If you would like to learn more about Blockchain in insurance, listen to our episode with Amit Ghosh from R3 here.

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