Project Sapphire will deliver a set of e-commerce services that are built on open industry standards, as defined by Origo, and made available to all product providers and intermediaries. These services will enable the intermediary sector to reduce costs, increase business efficiency and ultimately improve the service provided to consumers.
The new services being developed are:
- Enhanced electronic new business processing and application tracking
- Electronic policy valuations
- Portfolio aggregation, providing a single view of clients’ personal and policy details
- Single password and entry point to participating product provider extranet services
The services will be made available to IFAs via Exweb Gold, the next generation of the Exweb portal, as well as via the back office systems currently used by IFAs.
Prudential and Scottish Widows join AXA, Friends Provident, Norwich Union, Scottish Equitable and Standard Life as the seven providers already signed up to the initiative via contracts worth a combined value of around £15m. These contracts relate to future usage of the Exweb portal, which is operated by Marlborough Stirling’s subsidiary company The Exchange.
To ensure the e-commerce services meet the needs of intermediaries, 12 major distributor firms are involved in the Sapphire initiative, including Bankhall, Bradford & Bingley, Inter-Alliance, SIFA, SimplyBiz, Tenet and Woolwich Independent Financial Advisory Services.
Sue Summers, managing director of The Exchange, comments:
“Project Sapphire is set to introduce e-commerce services that we hope will transform the way the intermediary sector operates. By enabling a two-way flow of data electronically between providers and intermediaries the new services will reduce the cost and increase the speed of transacting new business and servicing existing business. Sapphire is open to all providers and intermediaries and we are delighted to welcome Prudential and Scottish Widows.”
Jon Cross, head of e-business at Prudential, said:
“This project epitomises the collaborative effort that is required for the industry to really benefit from e-commerce. It will result in a single trading platform that is easy and cost effective for product providers to support and gives great benefit to all types of distributor firm.”
Robert Wyllie, intermediary and partnership director at Scottish Widows, said:
“In the past the industry has been guilty of developing technology services in isolation. This new initiative will deliver an underlying technology infrastructure that is built on agreed industry standards, is open to all providers and intermediaries and delivers consistent approaches to transacting new business and servicing existing customers.”
