Dunstan Thomas provides portal & illustrations technology plus user experience expertise to Spire Platform Solutions

The retirement solutions specialist and fintech innovator Dunstan Thomas, has provided the IT infrastructure, tools and user experience expertise to retirement product innovator Spire Platform Solutions.

Spire PS partnered with Novia Financial plc, the investment adviser wrap platform and Just Group plc, the leading provider of retirement income products, to develop a truly innovative Guaranteed Lifetime Income in-retirement product - named Secure Lifetime Income (SLI). Novia launched the UK’s first SLI offering to the IFA market last month. Spire PS now plans to offer the SLI to other providers and platforms.

Dunstan Thomas’ Integro CX product was deployed to create the Spire PS SLI secure portal and online annuity application questionnaire. Dunstan Thomas’ Imago Administration provides the back-end administrative capability for the product’s underlying funds; while Imago Illustrations delivers compliant SLI illustrations electronically. Dunstan Thomas has also completed integration work into Novia’s platform to make the SLI ready to process via the platform at launch.

Peter Ellis, Chief Executive of Spire Platform Solutions explains: “Dunstan Thomas offered us a panoply of IT skills, products and retirement market expertise which enabled us to both simplify and digitise the SLI’s online annuity application process, while creating fully-compliant illustrations and strong pensions administration underpinning.

More than this, Dunstan Thomas put state-of-the-art cyber security and online access security protections around the digital application process. This is particularly important because sensitive personal medical records data will be collected via our online annuity questionnaire. They’ve done thorough penetration testing on the whole system as part of our security readiness for go live.”

Chris Read, Group Chief Executive, Dunstan Thomas Group, added: “As a technology innovator with more than 30 years of expertise in the retirement space, armed with Integro CX portal technology as well as our mature Imago product set and strong Microsoft technical capabilities; we are able to assist Spire PS to get to market quickly, working with long-term customer of ours Novia. We look forward to helping other providers and platforms bring this innovative hybrid income drawdown and annuity product offering to market.

“The SLI deserves to do well. It’s in step with the flexibility of access to retirement income which the post-Pension Freedoms world demands. Its ability to blend annuity and income drawdown income inside a SIPP makes sense given the desire for people to have some guaranteed income locked in, while keeping other retirement savings invested for growth for as long as possible.”