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Betting against acts of God is a great way to make money, but institutional allocations to natural catastrophe reinsurance have stayed relatively static even as some managers are generating double-digit uncorrelated returns.
Pillar selects Financial Synergy for platform consolidation
Peter Brook
Pillar Administration has selected Financial Synergy to consolidate its nine platforms into one by March next year when the $60 billion First State Super is scheduled to migrate to the new system. Financial Synergy’s Acurity, which was already one of the Pillar platforms, will eventual be administering about 4 million accounts when the roll-out is completed.
Peter Brook, Pillar’s managing director, said some of his clients were on as many as four platforms and were not too happy with the situation when he joined Pillar from State Super Financial Services in 2013. Other Pillar clients include State Super (STC), Commonwealth Superannuation Corporation and Aon.
Brook said one of the reasons Acurity was chosen was because it had been used to administer the most complex systems, including the NSW State Government’s defined benefit schemes.
Stephen Mackley, Financial Synergy’s chief executive, who started the company’s software division in 1990 during his first stint at the privately owned firm, said further migrations to the new platform will follow First State Super later next year and in 2017.
Mackley also revealed at a briefing last week that Financial Synergy was considering offshore expansion but had not made its final decision on where or when.
The company was established in 1980 by David Orford, who still works in the business. It also provides third-party administration to funds and consulting. Other big clients include ING Direct, UniSuper, QSuper, Telstra Super and NetWealth.
Financial Synergy will be putting a specialist team into Pillar’s administration centre near Wollongong for the project.
