Digital development and innovation are essential for success

Freeing up resources and strengthening customer-facing advisory functions has never been more urgent, as digital development and innovation are now crucial for success.

On the 14th-15th September, Keylane once again sponsored this year’s “Liv & Pension conference” in Copenhagen. True to tradition, more than 100 pension professionals gathered for two days of relevant and exciting dialogues about the opportunities and challenges facing the industry.

The conference began with an inspiring morning featuring presentations on the most current pension policy issues and sustainable investments that don’t compromise on returns. In the afternoon, the programme led to a dialogue about artificial intelligence, automation and tech.

Speakers from the industry put a sharp focus on the incredible development that digital solutions have had on the way pensions are run today in Denmark. It was clear that there is a great focus on being able to maintain or even reduce the current operating costs. In this light, intelligent IT solutions are seen as a way of freeing up resources to become more customer relevant and efficient, while ensuring the necessary quality and content in the advice provided to customers.

Legacy systems make it difficult to reach customers

Old legacy systems that require a disproportionate amount of internally directed resources make it difficult to reach out to customers, and hinder dialogue that results in optimal utilisation of every penny used for personal insurance and/or pension investments. As voice robots are tested to answer phone inquiries as well as to fully automate work processes, and machine learning grows more intuitive and proactive in all such areas, these advancements do not necessarily leave customers feeling that they are being properly taken care of – thus, human interaction is still very much needed and expected where it proves invaluable to customers.

Indeed, the need to properly advise pension customers was a common theme on the second day of the conference. Financial market losses are of such a magnitude that it must be expected that customers who receive pension payments from their pension company will potentially receive reduced income over the coming years.

The questions from the Danish Financial Supervisory Authority were clear: has the pension industry ensured that customers know and recognise that this risk is part of the pension product they have chosen, and is this an industry which believes, fundamentally, that it is running a pension business not an asset management business?

The focus on the second day of the conference was about how the industry – by using the many possibilities within digitalisation – can strengthen its position towards customers. With extremely relevant contributions from Danish pension providers such as Sampension, Velliv and PBU/Forca, it was clear that modernised IT solutions and customer and member interactions are topics that are increasingly on the agenda of every Danish life and pension company.

Seen in the light of the current challenges with negative returns and the derived risk of reduced pension payments, it became clear again and again that it is difficult to maintain the customers’ costs at the current level, let alone reducing them, if at the same time, you have to operate inefficient and aging core systems.

The importance of real-time, relevant customer interaction

Customers expect to be able to follow their insurance and pension schemes “in real time”, just as they expect that the interaction with their provider, and especially its advisers, takes place easily, smoothly and based on – for the individual customer – relevant information. Monthly “updates and calculations” do not harmonise with apps on the mobile phone, where you only need to swipe for necessary new insurance coverage or search for day-to-day information about the impact of the investment markets on your pension.

Viewed from Keylane’s perspective, the connection between the underlying systems and securing of the complete IT architecture seems crucial. Neither the pension company nor the customers can afford solutions that do not fit together or do not support all the customer’s needs, thereby creating uncertainty and unnecessary manual administration. From customer interaction i.e., either advice or self-service solutions, to the correct handling of all the invested funds hour by hour in the market we experience, this can be the decisive factor for success and, in the long term, survival.

More information

If you would like to hear more about Keylane’s modern SaaS platforms for the life and pension industry, please contact our Director of Sales and Business Development, Michael Nexø Leth for an informal chat at michael.nexo.leth@keylane.com or +45 3148 4300.