Unisys habit improves Abbey Life in systems integration

Chris Evans, MD of Abbey Life admitted that the company's legacy systems had long been overdue for an upgrade.

He said: "Abbey Life hasn't been taking any new business for about a year. We have 17 separate legacy systems and needed to consolidate them in the interests of the policyholders. Outsourcing to Unisys will give us a revamp for the IT platforms and put the staff in a position where they can extend their skills."

For Unisys, the contract has provided a timely boost, securing a the deal on the same day it announced lower than expected profits and turnover for both the final quarter and fiscal year.

Unisys has made a successful penetration of the UK insurance market since it started developing a comprehensive system for Scottish Life in the early 1990s. It now claims that its system is used by four of the top eight life companies in the UK, including Axa and Royal Sun Alliance, but this is its first outsourcing deal.

Unisys has promoted Alastair Taylor from the UK to become vice president worldwide financial services.

Taylor said: "We can take over the whole business process, not just the IT function. With the added experience of Abbey's staff we will be able to solve many insurance companies' long-running problems."

The Unisys e-@action Life and Pensions Solution is web-enabled and runs on an Oracle database on Unix machines.

Unisys reported net income of $334.5m on turnover of $6.89bn over fiscal 2000 compared to $500.8m and $7.54bn in 1999. In December, the company announced a 10-year $700m deal with Lloyds TSB and Barclays Bank to run their payment processing system.