ABN AMRO Craigs adopts Gatekeeper for KiwiSaver fund providers

Press release: Leading superannuation e-commerce system provider InvestmentLink today announced ABN AMRO Craigs has adopted the cutting-edge Gatekeeper solution for KiwiSaver product providers.

Wednesday, June 20th 2007, 4:50PM

ABN AMRO Craigs, which has a network of more than 100 advisers operating from 16 offices nationwide, and servicing more than 60,000 clients, joins Mercer NZ as a high-profile early adopter of Gatekeeper.

"Gatekeeper is a true multi-tenant software application, and we welcome ABN AMRO Craigs as our latest tenant," said InvestmentLink NZ's ceo, Maurice MacLaren.

"Gatekeeper delivers the electronic B2B functionality mandated by the NZ Inland Revenue Department (IRD) for communicating with scheme providers."

Jan Jensen, cio at ABN AMRO Craigs, said: "Gatekeeper provides true 'Software as a Service' benefits. We gain a ready-built application so we can implement our scheme quickly. ABN AMRO Craigs also gains ongoing maintenance and support from InvestmentLink's experienced specialists in superannuation data services, as well as a full range of access, service, security and support benefits from a state-of-the-art data centre running around the clock."

ABN AMRO Craigs Senior Product Manager Stephen Jonas said ABN AMRO Craigs' new kiwiSTART product was a logical development of its popular START investment product, given the recent incentives for KiwiSaver investors proclaimed in the NZ Government's recent Budget.

"The Budget changes required ABN AMRO Craigs to re-prioritise our planned launch of a KiwiSaver scheme," he said, "but one key issue for us was to deliver a cost-effective solution."

"With less than five months between the Budget and KiwiSaver contribution flows commencing from IRD, our analysis identified that InvestmentLink's Gatekeeper solution offered the best overall package of business benefits for ABN AMRO Craigs: A low capital investment, a very low level of project risk compared with alternative solutions, full compliance with IRD's B2B requirements, and immediate delivery before the October 1 deadline."

MacLaren said KiwiSaver scheme providers were faced with complex, time-consuming and expensive challenges to deliver KiwiSaver technology.

"Shared technology solutions, such as Gatekeeper, have significant advantages in terms of innovation, cost and risk reduction," MacLaren said. "They are also more capable of swiftly complying with myriad changes to regulations and technology interface requirements we predict as political parties, employers and the media get to grips with KiwiSaver and all its implications over the coming few years."

Peter Philip, ceo of InvestmentLink in Australia, said the compliance cost per investor over the long term was what mattered for any KiwiSaver scheme.

With some KiwiSaver scheme providers already indicating investment payback likely to be at least five years away, any additional cost of systems compliance to accommodate new regulations down the track just push out the day when a provider actually starts to make money from offering a KiwiSaver scheme.

"Just ask any senior manager at a superannuation provider who has operated in Australia over the past 10 years," Philip said. "They will confirm the business costs of frequent legislative changes. The evidence in Australia attests to the very real benefits of a shared cost of ownership model in an environment of frequent regulatory change.

"Our solutions will provide significant benefits to the NZ super industry, and what's more, they have been proven over the past decade in Australia's compliance-focused $1 trillion super sector."

Gatekeeper is the first module in InvestmentLink's suite of shared industry infrastructure products for KiwiSaver providers that will be rolled out over the next 12 months.

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