Technology transformation is just the beginning

Hrishi Kulkarni, Group Chief Technology Officer, outlines how technology will drive the next phase of growth at iPensions Group. 

It has been a three-year journey involving significant investment, but customers and advisers will see the benefits of iPensions Group’s focus on technological transformation, Group Chief Technology Officer Hrishi Kulkarni says.

“Our aim is to make iPensions Group known as the technology-based pension solution provider with all our services designed to ensure members and advisers are centre stage. We have exciting plans for further technology enhancements as the business progresses.”

“As a group we are working towards a new phase of growth focused on implementing market-leading technology which will support the development of new products. To achieve the ambition though we have had to completely overhaul our approach to technology. Technology-driven products are the future for us” he says.

The board and shareholders at iPensions Group identified the opportunity to transform the business into one with best-in-class technology delivering unrivalled levels of service. They recognised that technology is an enabler for business growth and can increase efficiency for future scalability and diversification.

The decision was taken to develop a feature-rich platform providing major automation and not to buy an off-the-shelf system.

The impact of the new system is transformational as Hrishi explains. “Three years ago, we were operating with 80% to 90% manual processing. We could have bought a third-party system but nothing on the market was entirely what we needed so we developed our own while carrying on with business as usual. That kept costs down and enabled us to design a platform to suit our members and advisers.”

The benefits of the new platform are clear for staff – there is a central system to manage advisers and members as well as all products on one platform. It delivers end-to-end management of the administration process and all the key information is available for decision making.

It is a massive resource as it saves time by automating processes. For instance, processing and uploading investment valuations can now be done in minutes and hours rather in days or even months.

For advisers and members the new system is a step-change in the efficiency of communications about their schemes as well as offering improvements to onboarding with the launch of electronic checks. However as Hrishi says: “More importantly this is just the beginning as technology will enable iPensions Group to offer digital services to advisers and members as well as to help drive new products.”

“What we have automated on our platform are the high-risk or time-consuming processes and we have developed a platform which is 100% designed to suit our current and future needs. We can enhance the platform at our own pace to support our business strategy. That can mean moving faster when we need to and means being able to control the development costs.”

“Staff have embraced the process. People now don’t just come to me asking for solutions but also now they come up with innovative ideas to enhance our platform. That has also applied to data security and staff awareness of the online and offline security threats and what everyone should do to protect client data. This mindset change and the fact that we have the technical capability to convert those ideas into technology solutions will help iPensions Group in the future as we drive our business forward.”

Disclaimer 

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iPensions Group Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, Licence Number 464521.