Aquila, the pensions administration solutions provider which recently acquired Heywood, today announced the launch of an Application Service Provider (ASP) version of its core product offering. The first client for the new service is Tate & Lyle Pension Trust Limited, which went live on 25 November 2002 after successfully completing a series of acceptance tests.
“The upgrade process was straightforward, facilitated by the professionalism of Aquila’s people,” says Steve Amor, Group Pensions Manager of Tate & Lyle. “We are very pleased with the level of performance over the internet, which enables users to conduct pensions administration whilst sitting at home. We’re confident that our hardware and related maintenance costs will reduce as a result of this move.”
Finlay Ross, Joint Chief Executive of Aquila noted: “Our ASP service gives pensions departments access to a brand new system at low cost and is ideally suited to companies where a new DC scheme is being set up. We can offer pensions managers an attractive option, made possible by the new technology of administrator, which allows us to deliver all the functionality a pensions department demands over the internet. We expect the ASP service to continue to attract clients next year.”
Aquala has provided pensions administration services since its formation in 1998. With its recent acquisition of Heywood Limited, it has emerged as the pioneer in the anticipated consolidation pensions administration in the UK. systems market. Its services are used by over 200 clients with 5.5 million pension scheme members. Clients include Prudential, CGNU, Diageo, Cadbury Schweppes, Xerox, BBC, Royal Bank of Scotland and the majority of local government pension schemes – the company having emerged from the local government sector.
The ASP service was facilitated by the fact that the core Aquila system, administrator, is fully web-enabled. It can be deployed internally over a corporate intranet, or externally over the internet. Tate & Lyle has chosen to deploy over the internet to avoid having to maintain its own proprietary database infrastructure, whilst allowing cost-effective thin client remote access.