Augmented Finance Operations Platform (AFOP) – Intelligent Automation for Finance Qorus-NTT DATA Innovation in Insurance Awards 2026

Augmented Finance Operations Platform (AFOP) is a multi‑phase finance transformation initiative designed as a scalable, foundational platform to future‑proof QBE Asia’s finance operations in a complex, multi‑market environment.

The objective of AFOP is to embed intelligent automation into core finance workflows, significantly reducing manual intervention and progressively increasing straight‑through processing (STP).

This enables QBE Asia to support business growth without proportional increases in cost, operational risk, or headcount, while strengthening control, audit readiness, and regulatory resilience.

Prior to AFOP, key finance processes were entirely manual. End‑to‑end Accounts Receivable activities were managed through spreadsheets, email‑based handoffs, and manual reconciliation.

In 2024, QBE processed over 100K receipts, with each receipt taking around 20 minutes of manual effort. This translated to around 33,333 manual man-hours per year, limiting scalability, increasing operational risk and placing sustained pressure on finance teams during peak periods.

This created a 0% STP baseline and high key-person dependency, increasing operational risk, particularly during peak closing periods.

Across Asia, insurance premium collection has benefited from faster payment rails such as FPS in Hong Kong, FAST and GIRO in Singapore, and DuitNow in Malaysia. These systems have significantly accelerated the movement of money, but they were not designed to support the rich, structured insurance data required for accurate premium allocation, reconciliation, and audit compliance.

As a result, insurers continue to receive payments with incomplete or unstructured remittance information - often free‑text references, bespoke broker files, or spreadsheets sent after settlement.

For QBE Asia, operating across multiple markets and intermediaries, this created a persistent reliance on manual interpretation, spreadsheet‑based controls, and post‑payment reconciliation, particularly across high‑volume receipting and bank reconciliation activities.

The challenge was not the absence of payment infrastructure, but the absence of a standardised insurance payment data exchange across brokers, banks, and insurers.

These constraints made clear that incremental automation would be insufficient. Insurance premium flows are inherently complex and intermediary‑heavy.

Payments frequently pass through multiple parties - customers, brokers, aggregators, and insurers - each applying different policy identifiers, aggregation logic, timing rules, and commission structures.

No regulator mandates a common, machine‑readable premium data model, and industry bodies have not yet defined a shared standard.

AFOP was shaped by a combination of (1) lessons learned from repeated close‑cycle bottlenecks and reconciliation pain points, (2) operational excellence practices focused on standardisation and control-by-design, and (3) external observations that bank‑portal or tool‑based automation does not scale well across multi‑market environments.

QBE required a platform‑based approach that could standardise workflows, embed controls, and flex across markets, banks, and regulatory environments.

AFOP was deliberately designed not as a point solution, but as an integrated finance automation platform.

It aligns intelligent workflows, control frameworks, and external partner (bank and broker) requirements within a single, extensible architecture.

Unlike many organisations that rely on fragmented tools or bank‑specific portals, AFOP provides:

• End‑to‑end workflow orchestration across finance processes

• Embedded validation and control logic to reduce downstream exceptions

• Configurable integration with banking partners, enabling reuse across markets

• A scalable foundation that supports continuous automation rather than one‑off fixes

This platform mindset fundamentally shifts finance from a reactive processing function to a predictive, controlled, and scalable operating model.

AFOP was delivered through a phased, execution‑focused roadmap, by country and characteristics of payment data sources. This approach ensures agility and measurable value at each stage while maintaining operational stability.

The initiative was delivered through close collaboration across Finance Operations, Technology, Operational Excellence, and Compliance, demonstrating the teamwork and desire for continuous improvement.

This ensured the solution was not only solving a narrow problem, but also able to scale and complies with our financial accounting standards and local regulatory requirements.

AFOP has launched in Singapore in November 2025 and delivered measurable operational impact. The platform performs end-to-end reconciliation and auto-receipting across QBE’s product lines, including Property & Casualty and Specialty. As of January 2026, AFOP has processed over 1000 records with ~ 70% STP achieved.

STP performance is expected to continue improving as workflows are further optimised, broker and bank templates are onboarded, data quality stabilises, and exception scenarios are progressively reduced through data model tuning and configuration enhancements.

AFOP was intentionally architected for regional scalability. Its modular design enables rapid adaptation across markets, banks, and regulatory environments.

Plans are in place to deploy Generative AI – Computer Vision to read more payment templates and automate credit control in the next phase. Ultimately, the Account Receivable workflow will be orchestrated through the platform to cover the full scope of Finance Operations.

More broadly, AFOP demonstrates how insurers can modernise finance operations responsibly and sustainably, without increasing cost or risk. It offers a replicable model for organisations facing similar multi‑market complexity and regulatory demands.

AFOP exemplifies Operational Excellence through innovation. By embedding intelligent automation into core finance workflows, QBE Asia has transformed finance into a strategic enabler of growth, compliance, and resilience, delivering efficiency today while building a platform for sustainable performance in the future.