Liberata, a provider of outsourcing services to the UK life and pensions industry, has won an 'evergreen' contract with Barclays Life and Woolwich Life to manage 1.4 million policies.
The £200 million deal will entail the transfer of some 240 staff from Barclays to Liberata. Policies under management will be transferred from three internal legacy databases to Liberata hosted systems.
Phil Hine, chief operating officer, Barclays Investment Management, says the outsourcing agreement meets the bank's strategic aims of concentrating on distribution rather than manufacturing of regulated products.
"Whilst the term of the contract is unprecedented, the contract ensures value for money throughout its lifetime through commitments to continuous improvement and benchmarking. It also secures our ability to deliver improvements to customer service in the future," he says.
He says Liberata's proven ability to successfully migrate clients's business to its systems was a key factor in the selection process. Marlborough Stirling, a competitor to Liberata in the outsourcing space, recently reported technical hold-ups in the migration of policies from Sun Life Financial.
Glenn Timms, chief executive officer of Liberata, comments: "Our life, pensions & investments team have built on our recent success with Axa Sun Life by securing this groundbreaking contract in a competitive tender against tough competition."
He says Liberata will now manage over three million policies on behalf of clients including AXA, Century Life, Save & Prosper and Barclays, "equivalent to a top 20 UK Life company".