UNIQA Defies Low-Interest Environment with Innovative IT
SimCorp, a leading provider of investment management software and services for the global financial services industry, today announced that UNIQA Insurance Group AG (UNIQA), one of the leading insurance groups in Central Europe with assets under management of more than 26 billion Euros, has gone live with XpressInstruments, the structured products module of SimCorp Dimension.
XpressInstruments will support UNIQA’s strategy to reap the potential returns of structured products in a historically low-interest environment, without losing sight of the necessary risk management. With the extension of its SimCorp Dimension solution to include XpressInstruments, the Austrian insurance company now uses SimCorp's cutting-edge system as an integrated solution for the investment management of both more conventional instruments and structured financial products.
UNIQA has used SimCorp Dimension since 2004 as a unified, transnational platform for investment management, international accounting and risk management. Meanwhile XpressInstruments was developed by SimCorp as a module to support complex, non-standardized financial products quickly in the system, without having to take the usual software update cycles into account.
Structured products can now be managed by UNIQA in parallel with conventional financial instruments in an integrated system across the entire value chain from pricing and risk management to settlement. In comparison to stand-alone solutions for managing structured products, as often used in the industry, the operational risk is thereby reduced dramatically. In addition, the ability to monitor the entire range of investments, including structured products, in one system, aids UNIQA’s implementation of Solvency II.
"The market for structured products is hugely dynamic," explains Kurt Svoboda, Member of the Board and Chief Risk Officer of UNIQA Insurance Group AG. "For the management of our portfolio of structured products, the new XpressInstruments module helps us to sustainably measure and control capital requirements. Thanks to the flexibility of the software, we feel well prepared for the new challenges to come."
"In times of historically low interest rates, it is extremely important for insurance companies to capitalize effectively on investment opportunities," explains Dr. Ralf Schmücker, Managing Director of SimCorp Central Europe. "Being an integrated part of SimCorp Dimension, the XpressInstruments module ensures that structured financial products are correctly priced in the system and can be managed across the entire value chain from pricing to accounting."
Enquiries regarding this announcement should be addressed to:
Oliver Widmann, SimCorp GmbH, +49 (0) 6172 9240-0 (535), oliver.widmann@simcorp.com
Volker Northoff, Northoff.Com Public Relations, +49 (0) 69 408980-00, info@northoff.com
About UNIQA Group
UNIQA Group is one of the leading insurance groups in its core markets in Austria and Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). With approximately 40 companies in 19 countries, the group serves more than nine million customers. With UNIQA and Raiffeisen Versicherung, the group owns the two strongest insurance brands in Austria and is well positioned in the CEE markets. The group employs 22,000 people and manages assets of more than 26 billion Euros.
About SimCorp
Since 1971, SimCorp has been providing investment and portfolio management software and services to the world’s leading investment managers, asset managers, fund managers, fund administrators, pension funds, insurance funds and wealth managers. SimCorp’s world-class software provides global financial organizations with the tools they need to mitigate risk, reduce cost and enable growth. SimCorp is a global company, regionally covering all of Europe, North America and Asia Pacific. Listed on the NASDAQ OMX Nordic, SimCorp is dedicated to supporting the global investment management industry, its clients and its investors. For more information about SimCorp’s products, please visit www.simcorp.com/product.