Life assurance and pension providers need to simplify sprawling
back-office systems and develop policy administration systems to
support new products.
That is the verdict from analyst firm Datamonitor in a report on
future IT strategy and spending in the European life and pensions
market. The report forecasts that the IT market will continue to
grow, reaching $13bn (£8.9bn) by 2004, up from its current level of
$11.9bn.
The spate of recent mergers in the industry has left leading
companies with some duplicated IT systems, which need to be
rationalised to gain competitive advantage, the report said.
If proposed depolarisation reforms go ahead, firms will also have
to ensure that they can distribute information to various
intermediaries across a growing number of channels, such as
extranets and cross-industry portals.
