Zurich International Life (ZIL), based on the Isle of Man, is part of the Zurich Insurance Group and offers life insurance, investment and protection solutions throughout the world.
FE fundinfo’s Digital and Report Production solutions support their pensions and investment and saving products and FE fundinfo has had a direct relationship with them for over ten years. The relationship with Zurich existed before that but was managed from the Zurich UK office. Simon Atherton, fund support team manager at ZIL tells us how FE fundinfo has helped.
The Challenge
ZIL required FE fundinfo’s Digital and Report Production offerings, firstly as an upgrade to their existing bespoke digital and document solutions that FE fundinfo already provided. However, the main requirement was essentially to make investment information and fund factsheets for their successful corporate international pension plan products available across Europe.
The challenge was not only to make the information and fund factsheets available, but to ensure that both were communicated in a format that was user-friendly and which best communicated their corporate proposition to their clients.
To do this, ZIL required a digital centre that could house their fund information which clients could retrieve and view along with publishing tools to create the relevant fund literature, such as factsheets and PRIIPs KIDs, for clients to download and print across their investment options. In addition to providing all these functionalities, it was essential to maintain the existing image and branding of ZIL at all times.
Why FE fundinfo?
A strong pre-existing relationship with FE fundinfo and productive discussions about how to improve ZIL’s current solutions were ZIL’s two main reasons for choosing FE fundinfo for this project.
“The existing relationship between FE fundinfo and ZIL was a big factor in the decision to work together on this. We know how FE fundinfo works, we already have our fund investment data with FE fundinfo, so given the time scale we were working to, it felt like the obvious choice.
“Secondly, our relationship manager at FE fundinfo, Axel Torstenson, made us aware that our existing solutions could be improved. By migrating to the new Digital and Report Production system from our bespoke solution, we would be able to deliver the fund centre and factsheets in a manner that was cleaner and more intuitive, thus providing an even better service for our clients,” says Simon.
Benefits
Customisable fund centre
The combination of Digital and Report Production enables ZIL firstly to provide specific fund ranges for specific corporate customers as well as a host of other capabilities that make it easier for scheme administrators and corporate scheme members to analyse investments. The documents that can be accessed from this fund centre are also useful for regulatory purposes as all automated factsheets produce an audit trail that works in harmony with regulatory and compliance requirements.
Says Simon:
“FE fundinfo’s Digital solution allows us to provide information on fund ranges, chart investment performance and host documents on said fund centre. By using Report Production in conjunction with this, we are able to host underlying fund managers factsheets and our own unit link fund factsheets, thus providing our investors with all the information they need.”
Ease of use
FE fundinfo is constantly looking at new ways to improve their offering and keep ahead in terms of the technological advancements in the market, to ensure that clients benefit from the latest functionality, the freshest data and the most innovative solutions.
ZIL found the administration and updates to FE fundinfo’s solutions to be even easier and more straightforward in comparison with their previous bespoke solution.
Simon adds:
“This was of vital importance to us. The combination of Digital and Report Production certainly ticked that box.”
Brand integration
FE fundinfo’s solution ensured that everything was on brand and seamless which was very important to ZIL.
FE fundinfo’s state of the art Configuration Tool enabled quick development and design of documents, allowing additional fields and features to be added without major development.
The FE fundinfo Experience
Summing up the experience of working with FE fundinfo, Simon said that the engagement and quality of the feedback and assistance made the experience very positive.
“The engagement FE fundinfo showed throughout the whole process was very good and everything was very clear as to who had responsibility at FE fundinfo’s end. There were defined boundaries that were communicated to us at the outset that allowed us to know, very clearly, how much we could customise the solutions.
“Feedback and assistance throughout the project was straightforward and delivered in a timely manner. Any changes that were required were made quickly and the key people we were dealing with were extremely helpful.”
To conclude, Simon commented:
“The end solution completely proved that the decision to work with FE fundinfo and to use Digital and Report Production had been the right one for ZIL.
“We are very happy and would recommend FE fundinfo’s Digital & Report Production solutions.”