Ashley Veasey, group chief information technology officer at Prudential, is on a mission to bring the 176-year-old insurer fully into the digital age. The former banker, who cut his teeth on trading floors in the 1990s and has led technology overhauls at global banks, now oversees Prudential’s sprawling tech and digital strategy across Asia and Africa.
The company’s ambitions are bold: leverage artificial intelligence, build new digital health services, and arm agents and customers with slicker, cost- and time-saving tools.
This comes against a backdrop of disappointing performance. Over the past five years, Prudential’s return on equity has lagged industry averages: Pru’s RoE for fiscal year 2023 was around 9.5 percent, compared to an industry average of 14 percent.
Since 2021, the insurer’s stock price has been hammered by an overreliance on mainland China from its Hong Kong business, heavy exposure to smaller emerging markets, a high level of debt – and a digital strategy that has lagged competitors such as AIA.
Those troubles have been reflected in both the London and the Hong Kong markets where the insurer is listed. Prudential’s UK shares have fallen from GBP1,523 in April, 2021 to a low of GBP595 a share in January 2025; its Hong Kong shares (following a 2020 listing) hit a high of HK$164 in April 2021 and fell to HK$57 in January 2025. Fortunately both share classes are rebounding this year, but have a journey to retrace old highs.
Financial performance has been improving. FY2024 RoE rose to 13.8 percent, in line with the industry, thanks to a boost in profits (from $1,7 billion in 2023 to $2.4 billion in 2024). In 2025, it recorded new business profits rising by 12 percent year-on-year. But its RoE is still below peers and its own historical norms.
While not all these issues are about technology and going digital, the current leadership team is focused on tech as part of its path to recovery. The good news is that the stock price has revived somewhat in 2025, but this is in line with the Hong Kong market (where Prudential was listed in 2021, alongside its main listing in London).
Moreover, digital transformation is hard. Any insurer will face challenges including legacy systems and regulatory headaches, as well as the deeper question of whether shiny new tech actually moves the needle for customers –and shareholders.
Banker’s approach
Veasey’s background is banking, not insurance – a fact he wears as a badge of honor. “Insurers do innovate,” he insists, but notes that banks have often led the way, especially in adopting digital models and fintech over the past 10 to 15 years.
Under CEO Anil Wadhwani – an ex-Citi banker – Prudential’s recent hiring spree has consciously pulled in banking talent, aiming to inject a sense of urgency and outside perspective into an industry often seen as slow to change.
Prudential, after a series of mergers and demergers, is now focused squarely on Asia and Africa. These are markets where digital leapfrogging is possible but where infrastructure and customer expectations vary wildly.
The insurer is known for its decentralized, or ‘federated’ structure, meaning local markets are in the driver’s seat and the group is more of a coordinator. This might be seen as a challenge for a group-level CIO with a remit of enterprise-wide digital transformation, particularly given the variety among so many emerging markets.
Veasey turns this on its head, noting there is a fountain of ideas coming from these local markets, and it’s his job to help them turn these into scalable products and services. Innovation isn’t just about Silicon Valley or Shenzhen: for example, he describes African nations as “hotbeds of innovation”, where daily difficulties in life – accessing food and energy – inspire people to come up with ingenious solutions.
The challenge then becomes how to scale these across markets or product lines.
Customer-First?
Under Wadhwani, Prudential’s mantra is “operations, agency, and health”. Veasey echoes this, talking up 24/7 digital access, productivity tools for agents, and being present for customers at their “moment of truth”, especially in health emergencies.
Pru has a mixed record of customer apps. Its ‘Pulse by Prudential’ app launched in 2019 but was quietly shuttered. Veasey’s team is now overseeing two new apps, one for agents and another for customers.
The flagship project is Connected Care, a digital health strategy that aims to go beyond claims by embedding Prudential in the entire healthcare journey, from appointments to payments. It connects customers, insurers, hospitals and doctors in a single, digitally connected experience.
But Connected Care is still a work in progress. It’s providing services to help connect customers with healthcare solutions and file claims: last year, for example, it aggregated data around medical claims’ cost spend across markets, providing better visibility at the group level, which is now leading to Prudential renegotiating contracts and getting a better handle on how to steer customers to the best care providers.
Connected Care is not yet hosting products to sell. Local ecosystems and regulations are complex and the insurer is still developing the enabling technology. Prudential has yet to roll out the full platform in any of its markets. But Veasey is clearly throwing his weight behind it.
AI Lab in Singapore
Perhaps the most newsworthy development is Prudential’s AI Lab in Singapore, launched in partnership with Google and the Singaporean government. The lab, which Veasey describes as “virtual” and “distributed by design” to cater to users throughout Prudential’s various offices, has churned out over 100 use cases in areas like claims, underwriting, customer engagement, and internal IT solutions.
One high-profile experiment is the MedLM large language model, which mimics a doctor and is embedded in the claims process. Veasey claims it has doubled the rate of straight-through processing and cut down on fraud and waste. In Hong Kong, the MedScreen Plus tool has reportedly sped up underwriting by 50%. AI is also being used to help agents target customers for new products and to slash call center resolution times from minutes to seconds.
How many of these AI pilots have moved beyond proof-of-concept? Veasey argues that if Prudential tries 10 ideas, surfaced from its various teams and offices, eight deliver discernible business benefits. That’s a high hit rate by corporate innovation standards – Veasey benchmarks this against his time running an innovation accelerator at Barclays Bank in the UK – but the process is still experimental. It’s a balance between innovative ideas and finding those that can fit across the firm’s federated businesses.
The RoI Question
Across the insurance industry, CIO and information security officers still struggle to communicate the real risks and returns of their tech investments to boards and investors. That’s especially true for ideas that are disruptive or new, with a lot of uncertain or intangible payoffs. How long before the penny-counting CFO asks hard questions about a tech project?
Veasey says the company looks for tangible returns – revenues, cost savings, or improved Net Promoter Scores – before scaling any AI solution.
Veasey speaks clearly about the need for robust data governance and security, especially as Prudential’s operations span markets with varying regulatory standards. Prudential touts its AI governance council, which reviews new projects through the lens of ethics and business value. And the company has invested in a commercial center in Kuala Lumpur for security and operations, aiming to detect and prevent incidents before they impact customers.
Working with Insurtech
Prudential positions itself as an “open platform,” inviting startups and insurtechs to integrate via secure APIs and sandboxes. But Veasey is clear: the company isn’t interested in co-developing ideas from scratch. “Work with us with a product. We’re not looking to co-develop ideas,” he told DigFin.
This pragmatic stance may speed up adoption – easier to get that RoI story past the finance team – but it could also limit the insurer’s ability to shape truly differentiated solutions.
Can Prudential’s Digital Bet Pay Off?
Veasey’s vision is ambitious: digitize not just the customer and agent experience, but the entire organization. He wants to “democratize thinking,” putting AI and automation tools in the hands of employees across Prudential’s far-flung markets. The company has made progress, especially in AI-driven claims and underwriting, but much of the transformation remains a work in progress.
The real test will be whether Prudential can translate its tech investments into sustained business results: higher returns on equity, improved customer satisfaction, and market share gains in Asia and Africa.
For now, Veasey’s digital push is a bet that technology, if governed well and executed at scale, can finally deliver on insurance’s long-promised transformation – and this in turn will help revive the old company’s fortunes in fast-growing emerging markets. But as with any digital overhaul, execution will determine whether Prudential’s tech strategy is remembered as a turning point or just another corporate experiment.
