Europe’s largest life and pensions consolidator Phoenix Group has roped in Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) to transform its Standard Life business through the TCS BaNCS digital platform. Last year, Phoenix bought Standard Life Assurance for £3.2 billion. The multiyear IT outsourcing deal, sources said, is estimated at $2 billion with an annual revenue run rate of $200 million. When TOI asked Suresh Muthuswami, president of BFSI platforms at TCS on the deal value, he declined to comment.
The transformation is expected to take approximately three years with many Standard Life employees moving to TCS. Under TCS’s 12-year-old IT contract with the Phoenix Group, some 5.5 million policies are under the former’s administration.
Muthuswami said the latest partnership expands the scope of the contract by 4.2 million policies, taking the total number of policies it manages to nearly 10 million. Muthuswami said the technology stack was focused on redefining customer experience by transforming legacy technologies of Standard Life’s pensions and savings operations onto its digital platform. Phoenix Group is a member of the FTSE 100 index and has over 10 million policyholders and £245 billion of assets under management. It has four operating life companies and operations in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Germany. The deal also involves expanding TCS’s Scottish presence and establishing a technology and operations service hub in Edinburgh, with teams from Standard Life and TCS. “The partnership will significantly expand our open book capabilities, and adds further to our already extensive experience in complex migrations,” said Muthuswami.
An open book business not only builds in safeguards for profitability, but insurers can leverage highly flexible production capabilities that can accelerate speed to market to meet the needs of advisers, employers, and their scheme members. Susan McInnes, CEO of Standard Life, said, “We want to ensure we lead the way in meeting the needs and expectations of all our customers in the future and become an even more innovative, progressive, well-run business. We believe a partnership model is absolutely the right approach. It will accelerate our ability to innovate and efficiently evolve our proposition in the future, whilst continuing to deliver excellent customer service.”