It’s all about the tech stack: the future of superannuation

While the buzz continues to be around the promise of artificial intelligence, he says it is SS&C’s ability to apply technology, including AI, to the entire administrative ecosystem that is driving down costs for members.

“I think everyone is still trying to understand the full potential of AI and what it can and can’t do within that ecosystem,” he says. “But in terms of reducing costs, we’ve done a lot of work around integrating those ecosystems”.

“If you think about it, it’s not just the administrator – you’ve also got the insurer, the custodian and the trustee and in most cases, they’re still siloed from one another.”

With integration comes the greater levels of straight-through processing. A recent project undertaken by SS&C with a large insurer, he says, is a case in point.

“We integrated between our registry system and the insurers platform creating more straight-through processing and obviously there are more look-throughs making for a better experience around claims for members; it speeds it up the process and reduces costs.”

SS&C’s other future facing application is robotic process automation which is used to streamline routine and repetitive admin tasks such as data entry.

“This digital workforce allows us to reduce errors that come from purely human activity,” he says. “If we can integrate all of this using intelligent automation software on top of the end-to-end processes, it is really helping us to drive down admin costs.”

SS&C, McKenna says, is also playing an enabling role in helping funds comply with regulatory requirements, focusing on automation and efficiency to support the all-important performance tests and lower fees.

In terms of member engagement, the company is prioritising the personalisation of member services, using AI and advanced analytics to tailor experiences and engage members more effectively.

“Simultaneously we’re also exploring innovative approaches like the Metaverse to engage younger members, allowing them to look up information on products or even do a transaction via their avatar in the virtual world,” McKenna says.

“That’s going to the nth degree, I think, in terms of where we’re at. But there will always be a cohort of members who will want to use something like that to engage with the fund.”

Mary Delahunty, chief executive officer of the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA), says members now expect real-time access to their superannuation information in the same way that people interact with their bank accounts.

This demand, she says, is driving significant technology growth within the sector.

“How we engage with our bank account is what the super funds have had to manage towards,” Delahunty says. “But as we all know, the back end of a super account is very different in terms of complexity to the back end of a bank account.

“However, that is what people are expecting and demanding.”

She says the trustee offices of the future will need to put in place tech stacks that allow the administrator to plug into member engagement.

“If you think about it, when you log onto your bank account you are essentially just looking at what you’ve put in the account and perhaps a little bit of interest and what you’ve taken out to pay for things.

“People want the same access to the information in their super, but what you’re looking at there is the unit price of your current interest in the fund. What is your insurance? What are your investment choices.

“There’s so much more information, but people are demanding that it be served up in the way that they are becoming used to.”

The desire for higher member engagement, Delahunty says, is now driving a completely different practice among administrators and the entire marketplace.

McKenna says that the integration of super admin is the key trend going forward as members with greater access to API-enabled modern open architecture apps want to interact, not just with the administrators, but the trustees, the custodians and the insurers.

“The ecosystem is integrating more as the members themselves are becoming more and more tech savvy and rightfully demanding,” he says.

To learn more, please visit SS&C Technologies.