Absa Awards Insurance Platform Contract to SSP

Absa to use SSP's insurance platform Absa has elected to replace its old systems with SSP's flexible InsureJ platform and reduce costs while increasing productivity

SSP has landed itself a particularly lucrative contract, after partnering with one of South Africa's largest financial service providers, Absa.

According to the terms of the new deal, SSP will provide Absa with an insurance platform that will support its operations across the life and general insurance sectors, eventually supporting millions of policies and integrating the activities of over 1000 Absa employees.

Absa chose SSP's InjureJ platform after examining products by several IT companies. SSP's brand was finally chosen, however, because it seemed a cut above the rest and offered unique features, including the ability to operate in all geographical locations, and to support multi language and multi currency requirements.

The Executive Director at Absa, Willie Lategan said about the changeover to the new insurance platform: "The speed of change in the insurance marketplace continues to increase as does the pressure on IT costs. By replacing four outdated and inefficient systems with one modern flexible system, we're reducing costs as well as increasing productivity across the business - from sales right through to administration and customer service through the elimination of re-keying, due to straight through processing.

The Executive Chairman of SSP, David Rasche had this to say about the new deal: "We are delighted to have been chosen by Absa as their technology partner for this major contract. This is the largest contract in SSP's history and one of the most significant international agreements in the global insurance marketplace in the last year."

"Given the continued uncertainty across financial markets, this shows the strength of the Absa business and is a huge endorsement of both the InsureJ solution and SSP. It's possible that the global financial crisis will help focus the insurance industry's attention on streamlining its systems."