Promina Group

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Fujitsu creates custom online portfolio administration service for leading Australian financial services group

The Web has revolutionised financial services. Online banking, online broking and online investing have become everyday experiences for millions of Australians.

The Promina Group, formerly Royal & SunAlliance, is one of the largest insurance and financial services groups in Australia and New Zealand, incorporating many well known brands such as AAMI and Australian Pensioners Insurance Agency. In 2002, the company identified a new business opportunity - an online portfolio service that financial advisers could use to administer managed fund investments in a single, consolidated package.

Portfolio administration services, also called 'wrap accounts', are an increasingly popular investment vehicle, used by high net worth investors to simplify the management of diverse portfolios. In addition to consolidated reporting and discounted fees, they offer access to investments, such as wholesale managed funds, that are not usually available to retail investors. Now, with the Web entrenched in the marketplace as a flexible and cost-effective delivery channel, the Promina Group was ready to bring convenient portfolio administration to financial advisers around the country. There was only one problem - the organisation didn't have the technological expertise they needed to realise their business vision. That's when they called Fujitsu.

Portfolio administration made easy

Fujitsu helped the Promina Group to develop Vista, a secure and comprehensive portfolio administration application. Financial advisers use an intuitive, Web-based interface to enter and update client details, create new accounts and manage existing accounts. Advisers can perform a variety of online transactions, from making a new managed fund investment to switching investments between funds, setting up regular investment plans, managing fund distributions, withdrawing all or part of an investment, or closing an account.

Vista makes portfolio administration easy for everyone - financial advisers, their clients, and back-office staff. When a financial adviser performs a transaction, Vista automatically generates an appropriate letter or statement for distribution to the client.

When required, advisers can also produce a variety of customised reports for themselves and their clients. Between statements, clients can use Vista View to monitor the progress of their investments online. Meanwhile, at Promina, integrated back-office systems and automated workflow features help staff implement transactions rapidly and easily.

As you would expect with a financial services application, Vista has a range of authentication and audit features that ensure security of the highest standard. Every transaction is time-stamped and logged, making it easy to audit user activity. An administration view enables application administrators to control user roles and generate comprehensive reports detailing transactions and their originators.

Vista was developed with Macromedia ColdFusion Application Server and a Sybase Adaptive Server application database. We used the company's existing Aptrix LDAP server for centralised authentication management. Forms are generated on demand from stored database information, then printed using pre-prepared Microsoft Word templates.

Business vision becomes a reality

After only four months of intensive development effort, Vista was launched in October 2002, making the company's business vision a fully functioning reality. Following the re-branding of Royal & SunAlliance as Promina, Vista was incorporated into the business of a new financial services subsidiary, Asteron, whose customers it continues to serve.