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Pensionsunplugged
Delivering transparent pensions online
Finance Matters wanted transparency. It wanted to empower
its clients. It also wanted a customer-centric, user-friendly approach to
the world of pensions and it wanted to do it online.
"This project was our number one priority. It was vital for
us in seeing the company move forward," recalls Barry Coleman, Chief
Executive of Finance Matters.
Founded in Dublin, Ireland, Finance Matters is an innovative
pensions company with more than E44.4 million placed with
leading fund managers.
Finance Matters knew turning its concept of making
pensions accessible into reality would be difficult.
A unique offer
What Finance Matters proposed was unmatched worldwide and
gave individuals complete control over their pensions. The
Pensionsunplugged concept envisaged pension scheme members being empowered
to dictate where their money is invested, who manages it and getting
access to their pensions' current value.
"I knew VISION by reputation, I knew of the work they had
done on Intelligent Finance and Bank of Ireland's Banking 365," recalls
Coleman. "I knew they could get the job done."
Finance Matters was capitalising on moves by the Irish
government to open up and promote the pensions market in Ireland.
Significant tax credits on monies invested has seen the pensions market
grow 25% per annum, with a market value of E886 million annually.
Drilling down
VISION conducted a Design-in-Action (DiA), which Coleman
considered "highly valuable, VISION drills down into the project before
taking it on. It allows them to offer an accurate interpretation of what
the results will be."
Prior to the DiA, Finance Matters
had intended only to offer this to individuals and the self-employed
rather than to companies. The DiA allowed them expand their offer, resulting in better returns for Finance Matters.
VISION scoped the business
plan from a customer-centric viewpoint and, following the planning phase,
teams of developers, testers, business analysts, process designers and
security consultants were mobilised to create a pensions engine with
integrated customer and support interfaces.
To proceed with the project, Finance Matters required
further investment. VISION facilitated by establishing contact with
ebusiness solution provider, Ecceleration, which had already developed much
of the software required. This cut expected costs substantially and allowed
the project to proceed.
Rapid development
Speed to market was critical and the first three months of
the project saw the rapid development of a prototype, allowing VISION and
Finance Matters to further mould the product.
To ensure that Pensionsunplugged.com would be a success
online, VISION ensured the core engine was fully scalable and the user
interface intuitive and functional, enabling individuals, the
self-employed and large corporations to use it with ease.
In addition to the provision of the pensions engine, the
content management capabilities of Ecceleration's software were utilised
to provide clients with customised news related to the scheme they had
selected.
A back-office system developed enabled Finance Matters to
fully maintain the system, including the aggregation and submission of
requests for funds from fund managers, thereby lowering associated costs
and increasing profit margins.
Users takes control
Typically, pensions houses take one month to implement
policy changes, but Pensionsunplugged.com functionality allows clients to
make changes online in 48 hours.
Users are empowered to control their pensions, make fund
transfers, alter premium dates and amounts, and conduct comparative
performance assessments of their chosen investment funds against other
available options in the market.
"VISION brought a huge amount in terms of expertise and
their involvement allowed us develop and deliver a range of innovative and
exciting projects in the pension and investments market," said
Coleman.
So impressed was VISION with the pensions offer that on
completion of the project it invested E2.4 million in
Finance Matters.
VISION delivered
"We wanted someone with strength in technology and
business innovation who would understand our business drivers. From the
outset we had every confidence VISION would deliver - they designed the
business and the technology to deliver what was really important for our
pioneering product," said Coleman.
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