Open source development specialist MIP Holdings has developed a software engine for application service provider, Alfinanz, which will allow it to be uniquely positioned to administer a complete spectrum of financial products - including life assurance, short-term insurance, retirement schemes and group risk schemes - on an individual or group basis, in one system.
Alfinanz is a joint venture between financial markets player Channel Group and Mettle, which provides back-office financial services administration for financial services companies on an application service provision or business process outsourcing basis.
"Having the correct software in place to administer products increases efficiencies and service levels, therefore contributing directly to embedded value," says Marc Tison, Alfinanz CEO.
The roll-out of the system kicked off with the AstraLife module, which deals with life assurance administration processes. The new system will enable Alfinanz to provide its local and international clients with an unlimited range of life assurance products in a radically shorter time frame than comparative systems can offer, while cutting administration costs for policy-holders. Alfinanz went live with its version of AstraLife, called FAFA, in September 2002.
In identifying an appropriate solution, Alfinanz used the services of Solve Consulting to narrow down possible development partners. "We considered a number of local and international systems, but not one met the comprehensive financial engine criteria at the cost Alfinanz was looking for," says Tison.
"MIP, however, shared our vision and had extensive experience and knowledge of financial system development which we felt suited our vision and strategy. The company had extensive experience in developing financial software in an e-commerce systems environment, was prepared to invest in the development resources and understood our requirements."
Don Elliott, MIP Holdings marketing director, says the Alfinanz system is the first product of its kind developed specifically for the financial industry and positions Alfinanz to exploit its total financial services offering.
"MIP is planning to use the first module, AstraLife, to make extensive inroads into the life assurance industry with a product that offers the ultimate in flexibility. The system addresses one of the major hurdles for the life assurance industry by shortening the lead time for bringing new products to market. Another major benefit is that users can customise the application themselves without the need for specialist IT technical expertise."
The newly developed life assurance engine integrates with a number of proprietary programmes developed by Alfinanz and forms part of a complex, integrated system that will deliver services on the Web and in an e-commerce-enabled environment, with the emphasis on reliability, speed and efficiency.
Alfinanz can offer financial services companies the back-office support for their front-office requirements, ensuring that claims can be quickly verified and processed, integrating people, processes and systems in a smart manner.
"AstraLife does all the processing for our clients once their information has been validated," says Tison. "As part of the Alfinanz system, it ensures that clients do not wait for weeks for claim payouts as a result of incorrect data capturing. Our system guarantees that all data is verified, validated and made part of the workflow process."
AstraLife is built on MIP`s Astra2 framework, the company`s open source rapid application development tool that forms the primary layer of development on which all MIP systems are based. Alfinanz has also acquired access to AstraGen and AstraFin, two well established companion frameworks to Astra2. AstraGen is a generic database design that supplies the core components required for any application in any industry, while AstraFin is a full accounting module that plugs into AstraGen. Astra2, AstraGen and AstraFin`s components were developed using the latest Progress WebClient and WebSpeed technologies and have been used in several MIP-developed systems such as AstraPen, AstraMed, AstraProp and AstraPos.
The system offers Alfinanz clients the benefits of improved service, says Tison. "New product launches, client servicing, policy servicing and new business will be greatly enhanced by AstraLife and will provide significantly better service than what is currently available."
Tison adds that efficiency is another key benefit as the system has been designed to slash batch turnarounds.
"We are the first organisation to have an open ASP agreement with MIP," says Tison. "Because AstraLife also back-ends into the Progress environment, this provides Alfinanz with a number of useful high-end, sophisticated management tools, such as report writers."
He adds that it is unnecessary for an administration system to be overly complex. "A life assurance system has to be as easy to use as Excel. Many organisations have Excel as their system for managing products and they have found that it simply cannot be configured for their administration systems. This was ultimately what we wanted and what was delivered. AstraLife has been developed with this concept in mind. Users can effortlessly configure and set up new products."
AstraLife has been developed with input from leading actuaries, management consultants, accountants and financial market experts. As a result, data can be extracted from Excel and imported on the fly.
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