Wednesday, 30 September 2026

AM Best Assigns Credit Ratings to Beibu Gulf Property & Casualty Insurance Company Ltd.


HONG KONG, Sept 30 (Bernama-BUSINESS WIRE) -- AM Best has assigned a Financial Strength Rating of B++ (Good) and a Long-Term Issuer Credit Rating of “bbb+” (Good) to Beibu Gulf Property & Casualty Insurance Company Ltd. (Beibu Gulf Insurance) (China). The outlook assigned to these Credit Ratings (ratings) is stable.

The ratings reflect Beibu Gulf Insurance’s balance sheet strength, which AM Best assesses as strong, as well as its adequate operating performance, neutral business profile and appropriate enterprise risk management.

Established in 2013, Beibu Gulf Insurance is a non-life insurance company headquartered in Guangxi province, China. It was founded through a joint partnership comprising of 10 state-owned enterprise shareholders and three private sector investors. Its ultimate controlling shareholder, Guangxi Investment Group Co., Ltd., a provincial-level state-owned capital investment company in Guangxi, holds a 29.73% equity stake through its subsidiaries.

Despite being a small-to-medium sized non-life insurer in China, Beibu Gulf Insurance holds a prominent position in Guangxi province, capturing 9% of local market share, in terms of premium income in 2025. The company maintains a diversified product mix, with motor insurance making up nearly half of its gross written premiums. Leveraging strong relationships between its shareholders and local governments, Beibu Gulf Insurance gains access to business opportunities in policy driven agricultural insurance and has continued to expand its liability lines in recent years. While its risk profile is concentrated in certain geographical areas, this risk is partially mitigated by approximately one-quarter of its business originating outside of Guangxi, namely Guangdong (including Shenzhen), Sichuan and Guizhou province.

Beibu Gulf Insurance’s strong balance sheet strength assessment is underpinned by its strongest level of risk-adjusted capitalisation as at year-end 2025, as measured by Best’s Capital Adequacy Ratio (BCAR), which is supported by organic capital accumulation and controlled expansion in underwriting and investment risks. Nevertheless, the company’s absolute capital size remains modest with a relatively high underwriting leverage. Beibu Gulf Insurance demonstrated its financial flexibility by successfully issuing capital supplementary bonds (CSB). Adjusted financial leverage, including equity credit for CSB, was positive at 17.4% despite a low interest coverage ratio in 2025. An offsetting factor is its highly dispersed shareholding structure, which may be subject to further changes; as such, the execution of the company's future capital plans may introduce uncertainty to the fundamentals of its balance sheet strength.

After posting two years of net loss, Beibu Gulf Insurance turned around to profitability in 2023, and sustained momentum to deliver mid-single-digit return-on-equity across both 2024 and 2025. Although Beibu Gulf Insurance has been recording underwriting losses since its establishment, it has achieved narrowing loss trend in recent years from the management’s effort of portfolio restructuring. The company maintains a well-diversified and liquid investment book, dominated by bonds, fixed-income wealth management instruments and cash. The investment portfolio generated a low-single-digit investment return, which was above the average level of the domestic non-life industry in 2025.

Negative rating actions could occur if there is a material decline in Beibu Gulf Insurance’s balance sheet strength fundamentals. A sustained deteriorating trend in underwriting and/or operating performance also may result in negative rating actions. Positive rating actions could occur if the company has a material improvement in balance sheet strength fundamentals while maintaining positive operating performance.

Ratings are communicated to rated entities prior to publication. Unless stated otherwise, the ratings were not amended subsequent to that communication.

This press release relates to Credit Ratings that have been published on AM Best’s website. For all rating information relating to the release and pertinent disclosures, including details of the office responsible for issuing each of the individual ratings referenced in this release, please see AM Best’s Recent Rating Activity web page. For additional information regarding the use and limitations of Credit Rating opinions, please view Guide to Best’s Credit Ratings. For information on the proper use of Best’s Credit Ratings, Best’s Performance Assessments, Best’s Preliminary Credit Assessments and AM Best press releases, please view Guide to Proper Use of Best’s Ratings & Assessments.

AM Best is a global credit rating agency, news publisher and data analytics provider specialising in the insurance industry. Headquartered in the United States, the company does business in over 100 countries with regional offices in London, Amsterdam, Dubai, Hong Kong, Singapore and Mexico City. For more information, visit www.ambest.com.

Copyright © 2026 by A.M. Best Rating Services, Inc. and/or its affiliates. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

View source version on businesswire.com:
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Contact

Stephanie Mi
Senior Financial Analyst
+852 2827 3402
stephanie.mi@ambest.com

James Chan
Director, Analytics
+852 2827 3418
james.chan@ambest.com

Christopher Sharkey
Associate Director, Public Relations
+1 908 882 2310
christopher.sharkey@ambest.com

Al Slavin
Senior Public Relations Specialist
+1 908 882 2318
al.slavin@ambest.com

Source : AM Best

--BERNAMA

Monday, 28 September 2026

VOCALBEATS.AI REINFORCES COMMITMENT TO AI INNOVATION AT FCGF 2026

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 28 (Bernama) -- Vocalbeats.AI, a Singapore-based artificial intelligence (AI) innovation company, continued its support for the FutureChina Global Forum 2026 (FCGF 2026), reinforcing its commitment to practical AI innovation and Singapore’s AI ecosystem.

Organised by Business China, the two-day FCGF 2026 was held at the Sands Expo & Convention Centre in Singapore from Sept 24 to 25 under the theme “Strengthening Resilience, Rebuilding Trust”. The forum’s guests of honour included the country’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Trade and Industry Gan Kim Yong and Senior Minister of State for Digital Development and Information and Health Tan Kiat How.

“We are pleased to support the FutureChina Global Forum and contribute to the wider discussion on how AI can be applied responsibly and translated into real-world value,” said Vocalbeats.AI Chief Executive Officer, Marco Lai Jinnan in a statement.

The forum featured a dedicated AI Track for the first time, highlighting the growing importance of AI in business and society, with discussions exploring AI deployment to improve productivity and deliver tangible business and societal value, drawing on applications ranging from enterprise software to robotics.

As AI systems become more capable and widely adopted, speakers also highlighted the importance of workforce skills, workflow redesign and viable business models, alongside safety, accountability and trust.

Vocalbeats.AI said these discussions reflect its belief that the next stage of AI development will be defined by its ability to address real-world needs and deliver tangible value to users.

The company develops AI-powered applications for productivity and communication, including Owll, an AI note-taking and productivity app, and Owll Translator, an AI-powered real-time translation app.

Vocalbeats.AI’s support for the forum forms part of its broader engagement with Singapore’s AI and technology ecosystem. Over the past year, the company has expanded its collaborations with universities, public-sector organisations and AI communities.

Its initiatives include the Vocalbeats.AI Scholarship at the National University of Singapore, the Vocalbeats.AI–Turing AI Scholarship at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore; internship opportunities for students; and AI learning workshops for children and youth in local communities.

-- BERNAMA

Friday, 25 September 2026

TEMPO SOFTWARE CPO HIGHLIGHTS AI SPENDING ACCOUNTABILITY AT REUTERS CONFERENCE

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 25 (Bernama) -- Tempo Software Chief Product Officer (CPO), Kevin Nanney highlighted the growing need for enterprises to connect artificial intelligence (AI) spending with measurable business outcomes at the Reuters Momentum AI Conference in Austin, Texas.

Nanney discussed how enterprises can manage AI adoption while tracking its costs, outcomes and alignment with strategic priorities. He also shared examples from his experience at Tempo, including how competing initiatives can reveal underlying efficiency issues and how changes in measurement can help guide resource-allocation decisions.

In his keynote, titled “Spend Is Tracked. Outcomes Are Not. The AI Accountability Distance Nobody Has Closed”, Nanney outlined three areas for enterprise leaders: tracking the cost and contribution of AI agents, establishing a governed operating model for human and AI work, and adopting more adaptive planning to identify and address strategic drift.

Tempo’s 2026 State of AI in Portfolio Management report found that 91 per cent of surveyed organisations are piloting or actively using AI in project delivery, while 26 per cent use AI to prioritise or reprioritise work.

In a statement, Tempo said the findings highlight a gap between AI adoption and AI-informed decision-making, reinforcing the need to align strategy, investment and execution across human and AI workforces.

Nanney’s presentation followed Tempo’s launch of Loop, an AI-native Intelligent Portfolio Orchestration platform designed to provide enterprises with a continuously updated view of time, capacity, cost and execution across existing work systems.

The company also recently launched Workforce Intelligence, which attributes AI activity to Jira work items, epics and initiatives.

Tempo said these capabilities are designed to help enterprises coordinate human and AI work while improving visibility into portfolio execution and resource allocation.

The 2026 Reuters Momentum AI Conference, held in Austin from Sept 24 to 26, brought together enterprise leaders focused on AI implementation, business value and investment returns. More than 500 senior executives were expected to attend.

-- BERNAMA

QUANTEXA RISES IN CHARTIS RESEARCH’S AML TRANSACTION MONITORING QUADRANT

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 25 (Bernama) -- Quantexa, a global data, analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) software company, has been named a Category Leader in Chartis Research’s RiskTech Quadrant for AML Transaction Monitoring Solutions 2026, moving into the upper reaches of the quadrant from its 2025 position.

Chartis said Quantexa recorded strong scores for data and system integrations and risk typology modelling, reflecting its combination of market potential and completeness of offering.

The research firm said the AML transaction monitoring market is shifting from traditional rules-based detection towards behavioural and graph analytics, data interoperability, convergence across financial crime functions and targeted use of AI.

In a statement, Quantexa Global Head of Financial Crime Risk, Financial Services and Government, Matthew Long said the company’s approach focuses on identifying relationships, facilitators and shared infrastructure within financial crime networks rather than analysing individual transactions in isolation.

Meanwhile, Research Director for Financial Crime and Control at Chartis Research, Sean O’Malley said Quantexa’s data integration and contextualisation capabilities underpin its analytical approach, which includes supervised and unsupervised machine learning and natural language processing.

Quantexa also rose to 18th in Chartis’ RiskTech100 2027, entering the ranking’s top 20. The company received the RiskTech100 Industry Category award for Trade Finance and the Compliance and Controls award for Trade Finance Compliance.

Quantexa’s Decision Intelligence Platform combines entity resolution, knowledge graph and analytics capabilities to connect internal and external data, helping organisations identify networks, relationships and potential risks while supporting transparency and model governance.

-- BERNAMA

Thursday, 24 September 2026

KAPLAN PROFESSIONAL TAPS MELISSA CHAN TO LEAD ASIA BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT

Melissa Chan_Headshot.

 
KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 24 (Bernama) -- Kaplan Professional has appointed experienced education and digital learning executive, Melissa Chan as Head of Business Development, Asia, strengthening its presence in Singapore and across Asia.

Kaplan Professional Chief Executive Officer, Brian Knight said Chan’s appointment reflected the organisation’s long-term commitment to building its presence and partnerships across Asia while responding to changing industry and workforce needs.

“Melissa brings an exceptional combination of education sector knowledge, commercial experience and deep regional expertise, with extensive experience building markets and strategic partnerships across different cultures,” said Knight in a statement.

Based in Singapore, Chan will focus on developing corporate relationships, strategic accounts and partnerships, strengthening Kaplan Professional’s commercial capability as it expands its professional education, continuing professional development (CPD) and tailored learning solutions across Asia.

Chan said her immediate priority would be building relationships with financial services organisations and industry partners, and understanding the capability challenges they are seeking to address.

The appointment comes as new research commissioned by Kaplan Professional highlights evolving workforce capability needs across Singapore’s financial services sector.

In a study of 200 professionals across banking, insurance and wealth management, 47 per cent ranked Advisory and Client Needs Assessment among the top three skill areas required to meet business objectives over the next 24 months, while 49 per cent identified difficulty applying learning to real-work situations as a barrier to professional development.

The findings point to demand for practical, role-relevant and flexible professional development that can be applied in the workplace, an area Kaplan Professional is targeting as it grows its regional corporate learning capability.

Chan brings over 20 years of commercial experience across education, digital learning and publishing in Asia, including more than 17 years with Cengage Asia in senior regional sales, marketing and management roles.

-- BERNAMA

YEAHKA EXECUTIVE HIGHLIGHTS AI’S ROLE IN RESHAPING PAYMENTS

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 24 (Bernama) -- Yeahka Ltd, through its international payment brand YeahPay, highlighted the growing role of artificial intelligence (AI) in reshaping payment platforms as consumer discovery, decision-making and transactions increasingly converge.

Speaking at the Platform Leaders Forum of Stripe Tour in Shanghai, YeahPay Global Vice President, David Tay said payment platforms could increasingly extend their role beyond transaction processing to areas such as merchant discoverability, customer engagement and payment acceptance.

“Value is migrating from processing the transaction to being present at the point of discovery and decision,” he said in a statement.

Yeahka has begun exploring this shift through agentic payments and commerce initiatives with industry partners, leveraging its merchant network and payments expertise to help businesses operate in an environment where transactions may increasingly be initiated by consumers and AI agents.

The initiatives aim to help merchants participate in AI-driven commerce, including making products discoverable through large language models and supporting emerging forms of payment interaction.

Yeahka is also applying AI to merchant operations through digital employees that support customer enquiries, product and service recommendations, bookings, payments, customer relationship management (CRM) and repeat purchases.

These initiatives reflect a broader effort to connect customer discovery and engagement with transactions and ongoing merchant management, creating a more integrated commerce model.

Looking ahead, Tay expects payment and technology platforms to differentiate themselves either through deeper investment in regulated capabilities that require time and regulatory approvals to build, or through specialised workflows that general-purpose platforms may not easily serve.

“As the interfaces through which consumers discover, buy and pay continue to evolve, the ability to maintain the underlying customer relationship could become an increasingly important measure of platform strength,” Tay said.

-- BERNAMA

LRN Launches Catalyst Voice to Help Organizations Connect Hotline Reporting to Action


New Solution Integrates AI-Assisted Reporting and Case Management into the LRN Catalyst Platform, Helping Organizations Reduce Barriers to Speaking Up, Respond More Effectively to Emerging Risk and Strengthen Ethical Culture


NEW YORK, Sept 24 (Bernama-BUSINESS WIRE) -- LRN Corporation, a global leader in ethics and compliance solutions, today announced the launch of Catalyst Voice, an AI-enabled employee reporting and case management solution designed for organizations to build strong speak-up cultures and identify workplace risks before they escalate into larger legal, reputational, or business issues.

Unlike traditional hotline-based systems that employees often perceive as intimidating or difficult to use, Catalyst Voice provides a more accessible, digital-first experience for raising concerns while giving ethics and compliance teams a more effective way to manage, investigate, and address incidents. Built natively into LRN's Catalyst platform, Catalyst Voice removes traditional barriers to reporting concerns through interactive and practical employee guidance designed to explain why speaking up matters, address common fears, reinforce available channels, and clarify what employees can expect after raising a concern.

“Catalyst Voice reflects what has always made LRN unique: our belief that strong ethics and compliance programs are a result of more than just good processes, they are achieved when cultures are understood, measured, and strengthened,” said Bob Lemmond, CEO of LRN. “For over 30 years, we have helped organizations build ethical cultures by listening to employees, measuring what matters, and turning insight into action. Now we have embedded that expertise into an AI-enabled platform that connects speak-up activity with education, policy, case management, culture measurement, and other program data. Through Catalyst Voice, organizations can do more than capture reports after problems surface; they can listen earlier, understand risk in context, and act before small issues become larger crises.”

Creating a culture where employees feel safe speaking up is one of the strongest indicators of an effective ethics and compliance program. LRN's research has found that while employees across organizations observe misconduct at similar rates, those working in organizations with the strongest ethical cultures report concerns 93% of the time. At the same time, LRN's latest research, The 2026 Code of Conduct Report: The Culture Behind The Code, Turning Standards into Everyday Decisions, found that one-third of employees lack confidence that they can report misconduct without fear of retaliation.

Catalyst Voice addresses the common challenges faced by ethics and compliance leaders seeking to create trusted reporting experiences and more effective management processes. Through connected reporting data and broader ethics and compliance program insights, organizations can quickly identify patterns and root causes of misconduct, allowing them to take corrective action faster. Key features include:
  • AI-assisted multilingual intake and translation that guides reporters through the process of raising a concern, making reporting more accurate and accessible across global workforces while keeping investigations and decisions human-led
  • Guided, web-based reporting channels for employees, with anonymous and identified reporting options, designed to reduce friction when employees are ready to speak up
  • Configurable case management workflows that streamline the investigation process, supporting case assignment, collaboration, two-way communication, role-based administration and fail-safe audit history
About LRN: Inspiring Principled Performance

Since 1994, LRN has been a trusted partner to organizations committed to operating at the highest standards of ethics, responsibility, and performance. Today, more than 2,500 organizations around the world, and their people, rely on LRN’s AI-powered ethics and compliance platform, education, analytics, and expert advisory services to navigate an increasingly complex legal and regulatory landscape and foster ethical cultures. By helping organizations embed ethics and compliance into everyday practices and decision-making, LRN enables organizations to build trust, reduce risk, and create lasting competitive advantage through principled performance. Learn more at www.lrn.com.

View source version on businesswire.com:
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Contact

Media Contact:
Bob Spoerl
bob@bearicebox.com
773.453.2444

Source : LRN Corporation