St James’s Place has paid £121m to replatform, according to its latest annual report.
The money has been paid to IFDS in order to ensure the “operational readiness” of a new policy administration platform.
It is an amount of money which is being prepaid to IFDS which will be unwound over the course of SJP’s contract with the company.
The SJP annual report said: “A pre-payment has been made to IFDS in anticipation of future benefits arising from the development of the new Bluedoor administration system.
“However, the contract with Bluedoor would enable the group to continue to use the Bluedoor system in the event of failure of IFDS.”
SJP has said it is “pleased” with the progress it is making in the phased migration of business onto the Bluedoor platform.
It said: “By 31 December 2016, over a quarter of assets under management were on the Bluedoor platform and currently, approximately two thirds of all new investments are being processed on it.
“We expect this progress to continue in the same controlled and phased manner as we have achieved since the migration started, and are already experiencing contractually agreed reduced tariffs.
“For the avoidance of doubt, the cumulative amount expended on operational readiness that was carried as a prepayment as at 31 December 2016 was £121.1m as reported in our latest accounts.”
Earlier this year Old Mutual Wealth revealed it had spent £102m on “platform transformation” last year.
In March, Old Mutual Wealth reported: “Whilst progress continues to be made, this remains a complex project, and there are certain pressures which, potentially, could increase timescales and costs.”
damian.fantato@ft.com
