Daniel Putra, MD of the PROFIDA
PROFIDA, a leading software developer for the financial services and insurance industry, has completed another round of exhibitions on this year’s industry conference circuit.
With exhibits at the FPI Annual Convention and The Insurance Conference 2012, both of which were well attended, PROFIDA was able to take its products directly to the market to demonstrate the capabilities of its software and to promote enhancements to the latest editions.
According to Daniel Putra, MD of the PROFIDA Team: “We have exhibited over the last seven years, and have been able to announce new features and facilities each year. Conference exhibits facilitate direct interaction with our customers and potential customers, which allows us to demonstrate in a tangible way the benefits of our software.”
Most product enhancements this year were around data integration and the sharing of data between insurer and binder holder, as well as between financial advisers and investment firms.
At the FPI Convention, PROFIDA announced the completion of its investment importation interface. This interface allows users, mainly financial advisers, to import clients’ portfolio data from the online platforms of Allan Gray and Momentum Wealth directly into PROFIDA.
Daniel Putra noted: “The advantage of direct integration is that entire transaction histories can be generated for different investment accounts. These can be seamlessly processed for PROFIDA reports like portfolio schedules and quarterly investment reports.”
For example, the quarterly investment report automatically computes the values, net annual yield (internal rate of return) and quarterly growth, as well as performance percentages, for each and every investment account.
Another advantage is that the investment account portfolio for an entire client base can be imported with just two clicks of the mouse, which makes monthly investment reporting easy and efficient.
In addition, electronic commission tracking has been enhanced for advisers and investment consultancies.
Commission administration consists of initial commission paid for up-front investments, and recurring commission paid for monthly invested amounts, or on the latest value of the investment.
Putra added: “It is easy to track the initial commission. However, recurring commission is based on values that change monthly, requiring major effort to keep records updated for each investment account. By importing these values in bulk, PROFIDA users achieve significant time savings on their commission administration.”
The Insurance Conference at Sun City saw the PROFIDA Team announce implementation of a widely used South African technology standard, which its users can apply immediately to facilitate the sharing of policyholder data.
“Data sharing is required to fulfill the new binder regulations that stipulate insurers must have all policyholder information on their records. This must be updated by the binder holder at least every 60 days,” said Putra.
In the past underwriting managers (UMAs) and broker administrators exchanged information via an excel spreadsheet stating policy numbers, policyholders’ names and premiums collected. Only at the stage of a claim would the insurer be informed about additional policy details.
“This is no longer sufficient as insurers need to have all the details, including sums insured, endorsements and claims history,” said Putra. UMAs and broker administrators also need to keep insurers updated about changes to contact details, addresses and amendments to the policy.”
In addition to the South African technology standard, PROFIDA is also working on integrating with other options like the international standard, ACORD. This will provide better cost management, greater efficiency in the value chain, and real time transaction capability.
Said Putra: “Integration with these standards is enriching the already extensive importation facilities based on CSV and XML within PROFIDA, which allow users to import policy and underwriting data on an ad hoc or regular basis.”
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