DST International (DSTi) says Heng An Standard Life, the joint venture between Standard Life and TEDA Investment Holding Corporation, has gone live with DSTi’s Investment accounting platform HiPortfolio/3 for its investment management and accounting functions.
DSTi says the system is multilingual, allowing each individual user to choose to view the system in Simplified Chinese or English. DSTi introduced this functionality in 2004. DSTi has spent 18 months – 3,000 man days – of R&D investment for China in order for its products to support instruments in the Chinese market. DSTi also opened an office in China in February 2003 that offers sales, consultancy and product support.
“We chose DSTi’s Investment Accounting Solutions for several reasons,” says Sean Lewis, Heng An Standard Life’s chief accountant. “We wanted the service to be of international standard, but it had to demonstrate the ability to handle the unique domestic Chinese requirements. It needed to also be future proof in terms of being able to meet the changing requirements of the China market and the readiness to handle complex instruments in the international market. We are pleased that we chose DSTi because of the professionalism of the consultants and that they were able to share their experience with our staff.”
See Jong Toi, Heng An Standard Life’s general manager adds that “whilst we have taken the strategic view of deploying systems with international standard, it was equally important to us that the vendor we choose must have a strong commitment to the China market. We chose DSTi because they are clearly committed to the Chinese market. They have set up a local office that includes the infrastructure to provide professional and support services in China. They invested R&D for the China market on their own initiative, which is evident by the multilingual abilities of DSTi’s Investment Accounting Solution.” Rhonda Lepsch, DSTi’s CEO Asia, says DSTi identified China as being a key market two years ago. “We opened the office and searched for the right calibre of people to staff it,” she says. “We also decided then to undertake the additional development necessary to make DSTi’s Investment Accounting Solution available in Simplified Chinese and modified its software to handle China’s tax and accounting and brokerage requirements. Combined, these things made the implementation of our solution into Heng An Standard Life simple and straightforward.”
Heng An Standard Life is a joint venture between Standard Life and TEDA Investment Holding Corporation. Founded by The Standard Life Assurance Company and Tianjin TEDA Investment Holding Co., Ltd, Heng An Standard Life has headquarters in Tianjin and a registered capital of RMB1.302 billion.