Perpetual Trustees Improves Super Fund Management with Progress Solution
One of Australia's oldest and most respected financial institutions, Perpetual Trustees Australia Limited, has improved the quality and speed of customer service in its Do It Yourself (DIY) Superannuation division with a Progress-based solution called SuperVisor II.
Developed in Progress 8.3 by Australian superannuation software specialist, SuperCorp Australia (www.supercorp.com.au), SuperVisor II gives Perpetual an efficient and cost-effective way of managing the various administrative, assessment and reporting tasks associated with DIY Superannuation.
General Manager of Operations, Travers Stow, said Perpetual went to the market in late 1998 to find a specialised product to cope with the complex demands of its large number of DIY clients.
"Our DIY Superannuation clients typically are informed, high net worth individuals or small groups with a good understanding of the finance industry, or even working within it," he said.
"Since DIY Super allows them to dictate how their funds are invested within certain legal constraints, they tend to be quite demanding clients, contacting their account manager regularly to deliver instructions about share purchases, property transactions or other investments.
"Our reputation rides on our ability to provide quality service and SuperVisor II provides the ideal platform for doing that," Mr Stow said.
"Our previous in-house developed system wasn't able to meet our very specific needs so we went looking for an off-the-shelf solution, choosing the original SuperVisor product for its specialised functionality and its ability to accommodate changes in legislative requirements.
"We implemented SuperVisor in early 1999, but SuperVisor II became available soon after so we immediately upgraded, since the new generation product offered additional features," he said.
The implementation was completed in late -1999 and today a staff of around 30 fund account managers and administrators access the system in Perpetual's Melbourne office where the DIY Super division is based.
"The system is used to service our DIY customers all over Australia, tracking every transaction that occurs within each fund, recording any gains or losses and calculating things like capital gains tax," Mr Stow explained.
"It also has to generate financial statements, tax returns and documentation each year in accordance with various government regulations. SuperVisorII has the capability to take electronic data feeds from places like the Australian Stock Exchange and other investment vehicles, which can be uploaded into the SuperVisor II product, enabling us to calculate the changing value of shares, property funds and cash management investments."
The Progress solution has allowed Perpetual to significantly improve the quality of service it provides to DIY clients, while delivering the economies of scale to enable the company to manage a larger number of clients with the same resources.
"Our DIY business has expanded substantially in the past 12 months, but SuperVisor II has handled the growth well, automating and streamlining reporting procedures while improving the accuracy and timeliness of the information we provide to clients," said Mr Stow.
He believes the choice of Progress as SuperVisor II's development environment delivers additional benefits for Perpetual in the competitive and fast-changing world of DIY Superannuation.
"Not only is SuperVisor II very intuitive and user-friendly, but its open and robust architecture will stand us in good stead well into the future.
SuperCorp first began using Progress as its primary development platform as early as 1986, but went back to the market 10 years later when a decision was made to redevelop its flagship SuperVisor product.
"The superannuation industry had changed significantly since we first developed SuperVisor, so rather than doing a major upgrade, we decided to completely re-write the product," said SuperCorp's Managing Director, Kurt Groeneveld.
"In that context, we had the opportunity to change our tools if something better was now available. We looked at all the major development environments and came to the conclusion that Progress was still the right way to go.
"They offered the complete toolset - a GUI programming environment, database, Web capabilities and more with a very low administrative requirement that helped to make our product very attractive to customers," he said.
"Progress is platform-independent, so changes made to the business logic can be readily applied across a range of client technologies, including Windows, Web-based clients or even ASP clients.
"This capability is a key differentiator in the finance industry because of the number of changes that must be incorporated into this type of software every year as a result of new legislation being passed," he said.
While Perpetual is yet to experience all the benefits of its new software, Mr Stow said clients are already starting to appreciate the difference SuperVisor II makes.
"We've certainly had feedback from clients who've noticed that statements are coming out earlier and are more accurate, while staff are finding the whole reporting process is vastly easier," he said.
"I'm sure we'll appreciate SuperVisor II even more as we complete our first financial year with the new software and prepare tax returns and carry out end of year reporting. We've recently expanded our Website capability to enable clients to contact us via the Internet and email us with instructions rather than having to speak direct to an account manager.
"We're currently testing this facility with client involvement and plan to extend these capabilities over time to allow clients to perform a range of tasks via the Website. Eventually we envisage a world where they'll be able to update their personal details and carry out various trading and reporting activities within their accounts, removing a percentage of the work we currently do on their behalf, and freeing up staff to focus on adding more value.
"Since our clients are spread all over the country, this facility is expected to be very popular for its efficiency and convenience and will enable us to further improve service levels," said Mr Stow.
About Progress Software
Progress Software Corporation (NASDAQ: PRGS) is a global supplier of software products and services for developing, deploying and managing business applications moving to the Internet. We offer superior messaging servers, application servers, databases, and application development and management products.
Our partners include more than 2,000 application service providers (ASPs) and independent software vendors (ISVs) who supply annually over US$5 billion in Progress-based applications and related services. Our products are used by over 10,000 organisations across 100 countries worldwide, including 60 per cent of Fortune 100 companies. Please visit our web site at www.progress.com/progress/
For further information please contact:
Travers Stow |
Perpetual Trustees |
03 9854-4234 |
Chris Henderson |
Progress Software |
02 9496-8439 |
Shuna Boyd |
BoydPR |
02 9418 8100 |
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