SECOND YEAR IN A ROW FOR AEGON!
November 14, 2008
SECOND WIN IN A ROW FOR AEGON AT SCOTLAND'S FINANCIAL SERVICES INDUSTRY AWARDS
AEGON UK has won Scotland's Innovators 2008 awards for the best new innovation from Scotland's financial services industry.
In the first time that a company has taken the top award two years in a row, AEGON UK won the 2008 overall innovation for its ‘Flexible Adviser Remuneration' - a new way of helping more customers get access to professional retirement advice.
The Innovators Awards are a Scottish Financial Enterprise initiative, in association with Ernst & Young.
There was also a special award for Standard Life for its ‘Step Up in Life' programme which helps encourage and prepare people for work. It delivers workshops in how to approach job applications and interviews and how to succeed at work, to young people, unemployed people and disadvantaged groups.
The Innovators Awards 2008 were made for excellence in four categories:
- the innovative use of technology, won by Standard Life, for a new internal document services system that will generate savings of over £1 million a year,
- innovation in products and services, won by Royal Bank of Scotland for its ‘Emergency Cash' initiative - a simple, one phone call, way of getting access to emergency cash when a card is lost or stolen,
- innovation in customer services, won by AEGON for its ‘Flexible Adviser Remuneration (which went on the win the overall award), and
- innovative approaches to people and skills, won by BNP Paribas for its Thunderbird project, developed to support staff as the company increased its Scottish workforce.
Owen Kelly, chief executive of Scottish Financial Enterprise, said: "This has been a difficult year for the industry, and we are all learning to adapt to a new environment and learn lessons from the past. But Scotland must continue to compete on the global stage, and innovation - bringing better customer services and products - is vital.
"AEGON' is leading the way in improving financial capability, with the personal commitment of its chief executive Otto Thoreson as its driving force. Its winning innovation is customer-facing, while encouraging advisers to support the customer to get the best deal for their circumstances. Improving communication between the industry and its customers is key to future success."
Tom McGrath, managing partner, EMEIA, financial services, Ernst& Young, said:
"The Scottish market has always been innovative and punched above its weight in global financial services. This is the leadership and innovation that our institutions need to continue, in order to develop opportunities both here and across the globe."
Notes to Editors:
SHORTLIST FOR THE INNOVATORS 2008
There were four categories, each with a winner, and with AEGON coming top overall. Details of all short listed entries, and the special award winner, are below:
1. Innovative use of technology
Standard Life - Document Services [WINNER}
Every year Standard Life receives over two million separate items of mail amounting to over 10 million separate pages that are scanned into the company's workflow system and delivered to various departments. This mail is then subjected to timescales for response, which is critical to Standard Life's award-winning service to its customers. In this innovation, Standard Life's document services team used advanced image recognition software technology to capture key information from every document, proving a state-of-the-art internal system which is quicker, more accurate, improves the customer service and reduces costs. This was a major undertaking which will generate savings of over £1 million annually
Standard Life - Retirement Solutions
The Retirement Manager is an online tool for financial advisers, helping them provide retirement planning to their customers. It is accessed through Standard Life's award-winning extranet site. The Retirement Manager allows advisers to demonstrate much more easily the significance of retirement decisions to the customer and provides a more streamlined advice and review process for customers. It is good for the customer, who gets more information, in an easily accessible way. And it is good for the financial advisers, adding value to their business and helping them build a stronger client relationship. It is provided at no charge to the adviser or to the customer, and is supported by an information pack which includes guides to help the customer understand the process and their options. In its first two months of operation, Standard Life registered almost 2,000 users.
Bright Grey - Expert Underwriting System
This innovation was developed in-house by Bright Grey, the first UK protection provider to launch its own expert underwriting system. The system allows financial intermediaries to submit protection insurance cover applications online on behalf of their clients in a more intuitive and cost efficient way than ever before. With this new underwriting system, half of the cases submitted receive an immediate decision, which is better for the intermediaries, reducing their workload, and better for their customers, giving them decisions quickly and more efficiently. The system was launched in March 2008, and has already saved over £1 million in medical and licensing fees.
2. Innovation in products and services
RBS - Emergency Cash [WINNER]
A simple, straightforward way of getting access to emergency cash if a card is lost or stolen. RBS Emergency Cash Service means a customer need only make one call to a helpline, and is then given a three hour window to use any ATM operated by banks in the RBS Group to access up to £300 in cash. The proposition can be expanded to allow others to use the service, for example, sending money to a child at university, to a friend who is stuck without money or for foreign remittances. It is a wholly new way of using the RBS existing estates of ATMs to transmit money and enable person to person payments. The service was initially introduced over the 2007/08 festive period but is now available across the UK throughout the year.
Aegon - Income For Life
Building on their successful 5 for Life package, this innovation is designed for people in the 55 to 70 age group with pension savings of over £50,000 who wish to continue to control where their money is invested and also want the security of a guaranteed income. It recognises that people's lifestyles and retirement needs have changed as they life longer and more active lives. It offers more choice and flexibility for this target group of customers, with a retirement income that is protected from investment volatility. And it adds to Aegon's strong range of retirement products.
Lloyds TSB Scotland/Scottish Widows - Lifetime Cover With Guaranteed Acceptance
This product offers older customers who often find it hard to get life insurance the opportunity to take out up to £15,000 of life cover, with a guarantee that they would be accepted at point of sale, regardless of their medical history. In addition to this, by asking a small number of medical questions they're able to offer the majority of customers full cover from day one - which is what sets them apart from other providers. In creating Lifetime Cover with guaranteed acceptance, the company also produced a toolkit and are able to offer the customer a quick and easy sales process while retaining the benefits of full advice. It is a further development of Lloyds TSB/Scottish Widows' successful Protection for Life package, and addresses a gap in the market.
2. Innovation in Customer Services
Aegon - Flexible Adviser Remuneration [WINNER AND OVERALL 2008 WINNER]
Many people approaching retirement today with pension pots of under £25,000 find it difficult to obtain competitive annuity deals. The low level of remuneration available to advisers for smaller annuities often means that customers are caught in an ‘advice gap' and can risk ending up with a comparatively poor deal. This innovation addresses the issue by allowing the adviser to agree an appropriate charge with the customer and then set the level of commission from the annuity to cover this - up to 3%. Aegon hopes the product will offer more customer choice and promote take-up of the Open Market Option, something both HM Treasury and the Financial Services Authority are keen to see happen.
Brewin Dolphin - Vote Your Shares
Vote Your Shares makes Brewin Dolphin the only private client fund manager and stockbroker to offer clients the opportunity to vote at companies' AGMs and EGMs. It did this by creating a Vote Your Shares section of its website, allowing its 130,000 clients who hold shares in one of their nominees or PEPs or ISAs to access the proxy form online and vote from wherever their location, increasing companies' accountability and strengthening their corporate governance. Brewin Dolphin promote this service to their clients and publish the results of every vote online. They hope the concept will be copied by other investment managers who hold shares on behalf of investors and used to empower shareholders more generally.
RBS/Natwest - Money Manager
The online Money Manager was developed as a new way for customers to get more involved in managing their money. Customer research showed that people intuitively use different ‘pots' to manage their money - one for bills, one for spending and one for saving. The Natwest Money Manager comes with those three pots, Bills, Spend and Save, and allows customers to view them online together with any other accounts they have. The customer's salary is split between the pots using rules they have defined and can amend at any time. Any money left in Spend at the end of the month automatically moves into Save, helping customers build their funds and encouraging saving. It is currently a live pilot, and is being considered for launch across the UK and internationally.
4. Innovative approaches to people and skills
BNP Paribas - Project Thunderbird [WINNER]
In the past year BNP Paribas has significantly increased the staff numbers in its offices in Glasgow and Dundee, with around 330 people now in post in Scotland. Project Thunderbird was developed to support the major culture change this sudden growth in staff numbers brought. It helped bring long term staff and new employees from each of its Scottish locations together, creating a shared culture with all staff contributing, and improving skills. Project Thunderbird involved all employees completing a weekly survey for 12 weeks which was the first time behavioural change has been empirically measured.
Bank of Scotland - From Apprentice To Professional
Bank of Scotland's Private Banking team introduced an innovative and flexible new colleague development programme. Bank of Scotland Private Banking created a new, fully integrated internal and external training programme was created that links formal Chartered Institute of Bankers in Scotland qualifications with internal training and mentoring leading to Chartered Banker, a Masters level qualification. The prime drivers for the programme were the demise of the traditional banking ‘apprenticeship', coupled with the desire to arm colleagues with the skills that will give them a competitive edge in the market, and a desire to develop a market leading team of professional colleagues.
Lloyds TSB - Transforming Operating Performance
Lloyds TSB brought an improvement programme model that is more usually seen in manufacturing companies into the financial services industry, tailoring it to their business needs. TOP is a nationwide approach to improving branch performance by focusing on customer needs and service. It standardises branch operations, people and processes to reduce performance variability and deliver a competitive advantage in terms of overall operating performance. It brings a rigorous approach to business improvement, and drives efficiencies.
SPECIAL AWARD FOR INVESTMENT IN THE FUTURE
The judges also created a special award this year for an innovation that reaches outside a company itself, focusing on helping prepare and encourage people, particularly young people, for work. Standard Life's Step Up In Life programme helps students make the transition from school to work. It delivers workshops in job applications, interviews and success at work to young people, disadvantaged groups and the unemployed. It takes account of national and local government policy, and was developed using feedback on a predecessor programme from a range of parties including small businesses, teachers and students. The programme is a free resource for schools, saving them money and giving up-to-date advice from business to students. 100% of teachers said it met their original booking objectives, and 83% said that as a result of the programme they would make changes or fundamentally change their approach to the issue. Students were directly involved in the look and feel of the supportive publications, and have the opportunity to alter the workshops to suit their needs.
Mary Mowat
0131 247 7700
