The two firms will work together to offer investment operations and platform technology to clients and prospective clients within the life and pensions and wealth management sectors. The partnership agreement follows the successful implementation and ongoing provision of services to joint client Retirement Advantage. Here Equiniti provides outsourced business solutions covering customer services, technology and change activity, including management of the underlying systems, while GBST provides the retirement platform for SIPPs and annuities, closely integrated into Retirement Advantage’s other technology and digital platforms.

David Simpson, Head of Europe, the Middle East and Africa at GBST, commented: “As a specialist technology company in the wealth and life and pensions sectors, we are seeing increasing demand for outsourcing of both technology and people, with the aim of improving operating efficiency and reducing servicing costs.

Through our joint client Retirement Advantage, we already have a proven relationship with Equiniti and have each developed a strong understanding and familiarity with how the other firm operates. Equiniti’s staff are trained in our software from a customer processing perspective and its technology focus means it can also host and manage future upgrades of Composer®. We believe forming a strategic partnership is a logical next step in offering future mutual clients similar joined up services.”

Enrique Sacau, Head of Financial Services at Equiniti, added: “We see more and more that clients want to re-invent themselves and run their operations and technology cost base more efficiently. At the same time, we believe that life and pensions and wealth companies are ready for an alternative to the traditional, often overstretched, business process outsourcers operating in these markets.

Our combined life and pensions and wealth business unit offers a broad reach of outsourcing services which, we believe, is unique from one single provider. By partnering with GBST, which powers a number of the fastest growing propositions in the UK and offers, in our view, the best in class modern, modular retirement and investment platform available, we can offer a compelling comprehensive outsourcing proposition to this growing market.