Pillar Administration’s three-year contract with Bravura Solutions’ Superb platform, far from a condition foisted on it by new retail client Aon, would in fact help the NSW Government-owned business win more master trust clients, according to CEO Peter Beck.

Most of Pillar’s clients run on Synchronised Software’s Capital platform, however the administrator also interfaces with Financial Synergy’s Acurity platform through one of the NSW State Super schemes, and via another recent client, the Australian Ethical superannuation fund. Beck acknowledged there were some upfront costs in building connectivity to a third system, in Superb, but they were outweighed by the possibility of new business from potential outsourcers of retail master trust administration. “;Superb was doing the job for Aon, and it was our choice to keep it. We decided the risks and costs of transitioning data to a different system was not warranted…we’ve also observed there are a lot of other [self-administered] master trusts out there running on Superb, and it’s easier for us to talk to them if we can support their system,”; Beck said. The former Comminsure boss said a lot of people thought consolidating on one system was “;the silver bullet”; for administrative efficiency, but those people were considering the problem “;academically rather than commercially”;. For example, as long as the group of systems had a common front-end, an accumulation member on one system could be transitioned to a pensioner member on another system, using workflows, just as seamlessly as they could be on a single system, Beck said.