Choosing a pension administration software (PAS) is a monumental task. Your decision could affect your organization for years or (most likely) decades to come. Dealing with fragmented and outdated technology that can't evolve poses a significant business challenge. Due to limited staff and budget constraints, coupled with the continually changing nature of the industry, choosing the right solution is critical.

PRISM, an IT conference targeted at public pension administrators, is always a fantastic venue to learn about what’s trending, share lessons learned, and network with pension agencies from around North America. And, the 2019 PRISM conference did not disappoint!

The National Pension Education Association (NPEA) annual conference is always a great forum to discuss how retirement education and communication initiatives can help members, employers, and agencies. This year was no different. We had great conversations and learned a lot from our clients, peers, and all attendees. We also found that most are also interested in talking to their peers (or identifying peers they can talk to) to get lessons learned and see how they’ve tackled different issues – I hope this blog throws some light on what is important to participants we spoke to.

CHALLENGE

Benefits administration is complex. Thousands of business rules and decisions are made every day to determine tax/contribution rates, validate transactions, compute benefits, process claims, and manage exceptions. If these rules were set in stone, managing them would not be so difficult. However, business rules are always in flux, placing strains on your systems, processes, and employees.

http://www.sagitec.com/blog/a-to-z-of-pension-terminology 

Are you well versed with pension/retirement terminology? If not, take a go at our pension alphabet.

Application performance management, including monitoring and logging, are critical success factors for almost any IT shop. The problem is that many of the tools available on the market to provide you with insights into the root cause of an issue are expensive and need a good data feed from the native application to work well.

Lessons Learned from the 2018 PRISM Conference

While every public pension agency has their unique differences, a common purpose unites them: to maintain the financial security of the trust fund and provide exceptional service to external stakeholders. In terms of protecting pension funds, there are numerous investment strategies to close the funding gap: using asset monetization and dedicated revenue sources, issuing well-designed pension obligation bonds, closing tax loopholes, among other tactics. Investment strategies aren’t the only way to maintain the sustainability of the plans, however. By updating the technology that is used to administer pension benefits, pension agencies can ensure financial security while simultaneously achieving customer service excellence.

The National Pension Education Association (NPEA) annual conference concluded last week and as always, it is said to have been an invaluable forum to stay informed and up to date on retirement education, communication trends, and important issues facing the public retirement community.