With a rapidly growing membership in South-East Asia and a unique network of businesses, governments and academic institutions, we are committed to supporting our members, their employers, students and educators all across the region.
Learn more about the services we offer
Become an actuary
Whether you're thinking about becoming an Associate, Fellow or Actuarial Analyst, the profession offers an exciting career for those who are ready to take the next step and get more from their love of maths.
Every year we welcome new students from all across South-East Asia who are inspired by the idea of becoming an actuary.
To qualify as an actuary you need to apply to become a student member of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA). You then need to pass our exams, which typically run in April and September, and gain a satisfactory level of work-based skills.
To find out more about the IFoA and how you can achieve your career goals, download our "More than maths" brochure today.
Being an actuary: our members' experience
Our members in South-East Asia work in traditional areas such as insurance, but also in non-traditional areas such as banking, investment, InsurTech and in digital roles.
Here are some stories from our members on the wide range of opportunities being an actuary gives you:
"The most important thing for an actuary is to have the right mindset to be able to manage people, adjust and convince people that you can do anything."
Anusha Thavarajah, CEO, Malaysia (Read the case study)
"I work in a small team in a reinsurance broker and the scope of work can be very diverse. Given the backdrop of maturity in the data science field, the increasing sophistication of the insurance industry in Asia, and the shifting insurance regulatory regimes in the region, it is clearly an exciting time to be an actuary."
Chris Lim Shen, Senior Analyst, Singapore (Read the case study)
"I enjoy developing a positive working relationship with my clients. It motivates me when I am able to solve their problems, and as a result, become their "first-to-go-to" contact. This makes my work feel more meaningful. I also enjoy the opportunity to apply my technical actuarial skills to creatively deliver innovative solutions for my clients whilst ensuring robust risk management practice."
Albertus Teddy Setiadi, Director, Singapore (Read the case study)
Supporting actuarial employers in South-East Asia
We are committed to promoting quality assurance at an organisational level to ensure confidence in the work of actuaries in South-East Asia.
There are now five employers in South-East Asia that have achieved the IFoA’s Quality Assurance Scheme (QAS) accreditation. The most recent addition is AIA Malaysia and Nicholas Actuarial Solutions.
The QAS accredited organisations in South-East Asia are:
- Actuarial Partners Consulting Sdh Bhd (Group Actuarial department)
- AIA Berhad, AIA Public Takaful Bhd, AIA General Berhad
- AIA Company Limited (Thailand Actuarial department)
- Aon Singapore Centre Innovation, Strategy & Management Pte Ltd
- Nicholas Actuarial Solutions
Become an accredited university
The IFoA works with a range of accredited universities in South-East Asia to ensure the highest quality in actuarial education and training.
Top 3 reasons why universities apply for IFoA's accreditation:
- enhance their actuarial science programmes
- boost student employability
- increase their profile worldwide
There are eight universities in South-East Asia that have exemptions to at least some of the IFoA’s exams, these are:
- Asia Pacific University, Malaysia
- Heriot-Watt University, Malaysia
- Mahidol University, Thailand
- Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
- Sunway University, Malaysia
- UCSI University, Malaysia
- University of Malaya, Malaysia
- Universiti Teknologi Mara, Malaysia
View our list of accredited universities
Interested in becoming an accredited university? Contact us to find out more.
Become a volunteer
IFoA Volunteers are at the heart of everything we do. Volunteering brings a range of great benefits.
We have an active volunteer community in South-East Asia. There are over 70 volunteers in the region.
“Volunteering provides opportunities for members to interact with other actuaries, globally, and gives them a platform to exchange ideas and understand a variety of issues observed in developed and developing countries.”
Farzana Ismail (Read the case study)
"My role in the ISCF has also given me the opportunity to engage with many actuarial students in my region. By sharing their experience, thoughts and concerns with the IFoA Education team, I hope I can somewhat contribute in shaping the future of aspiring actuaries."
Ooi Choong Hern (Read the case study)
“I would encourage you to step forward and become a CPD Co-ordinator for your company!”
Pay Peng Neo (Read the case study)
Please contact us to find out more about volunteering opportunities in South-East Asia.
News
Tan Suee Chieh has been appointed as the President-elect for 2019 and will take on the role of President in June 2020. Click here for the full article.
The January 2019 edition of The Actuary magazine featured Sophia Ch'ng, an IFoA member based in Malaysia.
Read our latest South-East Asia newsletter for updates in the region or head to our International section for pervious editions.
Events
IFoA Presidential Address and AGM 2020
Tan Suee Chieh will be inaugurated as President of the IFoA at this year’s Annual General Meeting (AGM). Join us for Suee Chieh’s Presidential address on “Uncertainty, Culture and Imagination” on Thursday, 18 June at 09.30 BST via live webinar. Using the COVID-19 crisis as the backdrop, he will invite IFoA members and the actuarial profession to re-imagine our roles in a digital age and a future fraught with uncertainty. Further details of the event and how to register can be found here.
The IFoA’s AGM for 2020 will be held via live webinar on Monday, 15 June at 12.00 BST, and will be followed by a Q&A session with the IFoA Leadership Team. Your views are important to us, so we encourage you to attend the meeting so we can hear your views and questions. You can book your place on the webinar here.
IFoA Asia Conference 2020
The IFoA's policy regarding COVID-19 is designed to safeguard the well-being of members and employees. As stated within the policy, the IFoA is reviewing its events programme on a case-by-case basis.
To this end the IFoA and their strategic partner, the AIR, have taken the decision to postpone this year's Asia Conference. A new date will be announced pending further reviews over the following months.
CERA Seminar - postponed to later in the year
CERA have taken the decision to postpone this seminar. A new date will be announced pending further reviews over the following months.
Please note that we are closely monitoring the coronavirus situation and may have to postpone or cancel this seminar should the need arise.
Event speakers
Looking for speakers? Our members are experienced speakers on a range of topics with recent presentations in South-East Asia on cyber risk, retirement adequacy and IFRS17.
About us
The IFoA’s Singapore office has been in operation since 2014 and we were the first, and remain the only, international body to have an office in South-East Asia. The office has been set up to cater to our 1,000+ members in Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. Please get in touch with us if you have an interest in joining the actuarial profession, or employing actuaries in South-East Asia.
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163 Tras Street, #07-05 Lian Huat Building, Singapore 079024 Contact number: +65 6906 0889 |
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Caryn Chua, South-East Asia Actuary Representative Contact number: +65 8838 5848 |
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Marie Lee, South-East Asia Regional Coordinator Contact number: +65 8778 1784 |
We also work closely with the local societies in the region:
Filter or search events
Events calendar
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Current Issues in Life Assurance (CILA) Webinar series
Webinar Series15 July 2020 - 3 August 2020
CILA is one of the pre-eminent events in the annual 'Life' calendar. Due to COVID-19 we are running the programme as a series of webinars covering topics aimed at practicing life actuaries from life offices, consulting firms and other employers of actuaries and those who work in or advise on, the life assurance market in the UK and Europe. -
CILA Webinar - Growing Pains: Taking the Strain
Webinar15 July 2020Current Issues in Life Assurance - For annuity writers, a key challenge is the need to fund capital-consumptive new business strain (NBS) as a consequence of writing the business intended to fund future distributions. Reinsurance, investment strategy and capital provision all have roles to play which we will investigate in this webinar -
CILA Webinar - 2020 Mortality Developments Across the Profession
Webinar16 July 2020Current Issues in Life Assurance – Mortality in 2020 is now dominated by one thing, although – in our future-focused world – the pandemic is just one of many mortality considerations. In this session, three well-regarded mortality/longevity specialists provide an overview of implications and impacts of COVID-19, recent and imminent CMI developments and more 'future focused' work in the MRSC -
Webinar - Panel discussion: How banks are responding to the Covid-19 pandemic
Webinar16 July 2020Because of Covid-19, forecasters predict a severe recession in 2020, followed by a V or U-shaped recovery. This impacts both individuals and companies. However, compared to previous recessions, the impact on banks of higher credit losses should be mitigated to some extent by government actions. -
PHC Conference webinar: Impactability Modelling for Population Health Management
Webinar20 July 2020Part of the Protection, Health and Care Conference 2020 webinar seriesThis session will provide an overview of the Population Health Management Working Party's research including defining impactability and impactability modelling, discussing some examples of specific modelling approaches, considering the practical challenges across the NHS as well as wider public perception and ethical issues.
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Finance and Investment Webinar: A Career in Finance and Investment
Webinar21 July 2020Many actuaries consider career opportunities in the Finance and Investment practice area after having started off in more traditional actuarial roles such as valuations, capital management or pricing. This session is aimed at helping actuaries to better understand roles in Finance and Investment and how they can fine tune their skills to pursue such careers. -
Mortality and Longevity Webinar Series 2020
Webinar Series22 July 2020 - 10 August 2020Due to COVID-19, we are running this programme via a series of webinars commencing 22nd July.This webinar series will provide topical and practical updates and discussion on the latest thinking and innovations in mortality and longevity, and is designed to be very accessible to a broad range of experience.
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Mortality and Longevity Webinar: 'Researching research' - how to make use of medical research papers
Webinar22 July 2020Insurers are making increasing use of medical research to help with assumption, models and underwriting. Experienced mortality/ longevity specialists discuss the issues in the interpretation of medical research papers, using a range of case studies. The case studies will include COVID-19 points of current importance. Many of the concepts discussed (data bias, inference of causation) are also applicable to equivalent questions in 'big data' and advanced analytics. -
Mortality and Longevity Webinar: What can we learn from mortality by cause of death?
Webinar22 July 2020Members of the Mortality Working Group of the IAA have analysed changes in mortality for about 30 causes of death and will discuss how causes of death are classified, and the problems of long-term data, appropriate metrics, including "years of life lost" (YLL), causes of death - a "measure of cohortness", the changes in dominant causes of death at older ages, and how can these types of studies enhance mortality forecasting. -
Mortality and Longevity Webinar: Towards Precision Insurance: dynamic hazards modelling in Big Data
Webinar23 July 2020Predictive risk assessment and risk stratification models based on postcode-level consumer classification are widely used for life insurance underwriting. However, these are socio-economic models not directly related to health information. Similar to precision medicine, precision life insurance should aim to tailor policy pricing/reserving to the individual health characteristics of each client. -
Twitter Sentiment Analysis: What does Social Media tell us about coronavirus concerns in the UK?
Webinar24 July 2020The aim of this webinar is to provide an overview of research undertaken within the Data Science Working Party on applying machine learning methods for sentiment analysis and opinion mining of UK Twitter data relating to COVID-19. -
Modelling Dangers – What to look out for in Terms of Poor Model Selection and Calibration
Webinar27 July 2020This discussion, the fourth in the Extreme Mortality Events webinar series, will look at what poor model selection and calibration could look like – using inappropriate historical data; using incorrect 2020 mortality data; and inappropriate stochastic model recalibration (or lack thereof). Presented by Chair of the Life Board of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries, Colin Dutkiewicz. -
Finance and Investment Webinar: ESG forays into fixed income
Webinar28 July 2020This webinar has been re-scheduled from its original date of the 1st July. Although ESG has many buyers across the asset allocation community, from pension funds to sovereign wealth funds, it still hasn’t found its place within the core asset management strategy desks where the money is actually invested. The problem as well as the opportunity is Fixed Income. Plenty of strategies exist for incorporating ESG within Equities, from screening, integration to a combination. ESG has picked up relatively quickly within Equities with rating,indices created using ESG factors. This talk will discuss how we price a quantifiable ESG credit risk premium and make it alpha worthy in a strategy. -
Mortality and Longevity Webinar: Clusters and correlations in international mortality trends
Webinar28 July 2020Over the past decades, many countries have exhibited mortality rates approximately following a piecewise linear law. This is visible in the form of steady improvements over multiple years, followed by a rather abrupt trend change, and then again stable improvements according to the new trend. -
PHC Conference webinar: Dementia and insurance: cognitive protection
Webinar28 July 2020Part of the Protection, Health and Care Conference 2020 webinar seriesWith the rising prevalence of dementia, how can we manage this risk effectively and can insurance do more? Matt Singleton, Ageing Lead at Swiss Re, will cover these topics and demonstrate how insurance could help people address their concerns.
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CILA Webinar - Are we in the Era of Actuarial Data Science Modelling?
Webinar29 July 2020Current Issues in Life Assurance – Join us for an exploration session on the use of data science in insurance companies today including how insurers are making sense of and using new data sources and technologies, exploration of practical applications of data science within actuarial work, benefits of data-driven decisions to solve business problems using the power of data and technology, and the role that actuaries can play to harness the benefits of data science. -
CILA Webinar - The Capital Management Toolkit
Webinar29 July 2020Current Issues in Life AssuranceThis talk will look at a range of such techniques (e.g. mass lapse risk transfer, contract boundaries, risk margin relief, non-standard longevity risk transfer) that have been applied or considered by UK and EU insurers, and the pros and cons of each.
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CILA Webinar - Global Capital Standards – What does the Adoption of ICS v2.0 Mean?
Webinar3 August 2020Current Issues in Life Assurance.The International Association of Insurance Supervisors announced on 14 November 2019 the adoption of v2.0 of the global Insurance Capital Standard (ICS) which will undergo confidential reporting for 5 years starting from 2020. This session will include specific experiences from Legal and General (L&G) as well as global industry perspectives from EY.
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CILA Webinar - Developing and Executing a Climate Risk Strategy
Webinar3 August 2020 - 4 August 2020Current Issues in Life AssuranceThis session will cover the PRA supervisory statement on financial impacts related to climate change, industry insights into PRA climate risk business plans, examples climate risk strategy setting out key workstreams and activity steps for successful execution, an overview of a climate risk strategy execution timeline and the future.
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Webinar: Revised IFRS 17 – Implications for Insurers and Actuaries
Webinar4 August 2020On 25 June the International Accounting Standards Board published Amendments to IFRS 17, the Insurance Contracts global accounting standard effective 1 January 2023. -
PHC Conference webinar: Mental Health Underwriting - updating for current medical practice
Webinar4 August 2020Part of the Protection, Health and Care Conference 2020 webinar seriesThis session will cover how we have challenged conventional approaches to underwriting and risk selection in order to develop an approach that aligns current practices, customer and broader interests with robust risk assessment.
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PHC Conference webinar: Engagement and innovation for the next generation consumer
Webinar5 August 2020Part of the Protection, Health and Care Conference 2020 webinar series. Using new and unique research and data from the UK, US, Sweden and China, this presentation investigates how consumers use the internet through their insurance journey and analyzes the role culture and generation plays in their online behaviour. We use this research to show the online landscape for insurance sales in the UK and suggest ways to shape new products and effectively engage with the consumer who is buying them. -
PHC Conference webinar: Gene Modification
Webinar6 August 2020Chief Medical Officer (CMO) for Gen Re Life/Health Research and Development, Dr John O'Brien, will discuss the impacts of Gene Modification for life/health insurance. -
Mortality and Longevity Webinar: A New Framework for Future Mortality
Webinar6 August 2020Our presentation will examine the challenges arising in setting mortality improvement assumptions, exposing known but under-explored vulnerabilities of current practices. -
Mortality and Longevity Webinar: Beyond control - what could be our next big health threat?
Webinar10 August 2020As an industry, it has been important to be able to look to the future to identify the next quantifiable risk. In this session, I will explore some of the less tangible, but none-the-less concerning risks to future health, such as the health risks associated with exposure to pesticides, ingestion of plastic in the food chain, and the hazards of indoor air pollution through exposure to volatile organic compounds. -
Mortality and Longevity Webinar: The IFoA diabetes working party - our journey so far
Webinar10 August 2020The working party will help the industry to update and enhance how potential risk from diabetes and excess mortality is considered, including the need to understand the underwriting implications as treatments improve, and potentially to develop new products that are tailored to those with diabetes. -
Professional Skills Training Webinar - 12 August 2020
Webinar12 August 2020
This event is now fully booked. To join the wait list, please register here.A Trusted Profession
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PHC Conference webinar: Cancer morbidity risk modelling – regional variation over time
Webinar12 August 2020Part of the Protection, Health and Care Conference 2020 webinar series. Modelling the structure and trends of cancer morbidity risk is important for pricing and reserving in related health insurance fields such as critical illness insurance and care provision. We model the dynamics of cancer incidence over time in different regions in England, using 1981-2016 ONS data. The modelling allows estimation of cancer rates at various age, year, gender and region levels, following a Bayesian setting to account for statistical uncertainty. Our analysis indicates significant regional variation in cancer incidence rates. -
PHC Conference webinar: Learnings from our first climate-change related disclosures (TCFD)
Webinar13 August 2020Part of the Protection, Health and Care Conference 2020 webinar series. In this talk we will outline the steps Aviva took in pulling together our first large-scale disclosures on the exposure of our business to climate change published in March 2019; in line with the recommendations of the Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures. After touching on why insurers have such an important role in climate change, we'll cover a brief “how-to” guide for those who have not yet embarked on thinking about these topics before giving a case study of how the learnings from a TCFD disclosure exercise can be applied to investment portfolios. -
PHC Conference webinar: Can we manage Diabetes risk for healthier outcomes
Webinar17 August 2020Part of the Protection, Health and Care Conference 2020 webinar series. The insurance industry currently underwrites customers with diabetes based on a range of factors, medical expertise and various medical studies. The work undertaken by the Diabetes Working Party would help the industry to approach this using current research findings to update and enhance how potential risk from diabetes is considered. This includes the need to understand the underwriting implications as treatments improve, and potentially to develop new products that are tailored to those with diabetes. This webinar will present our latest findings in the management of this important chronic condition which will include research in collaboration with the ARC.
CILA is one of the pre-eminent events in the annual 'Life' calendar. Due to COVID-19 we are running the programme as a series of webinars covering topics aimed at practicing life actuaries from life offices, consulting firms and other employers of actuaries and those who work in or advise on, the life assurance market in the UK and Europe.