Australian wealth management company Pillar and EY use blockchain for pension management

Australia's traditional wealth management industry, such as pension management, is ready to transform using new technologies such as blockchain. Recently, Pillar Wealth Management announced its entry into the blockchain field and hired Ernst & Young as a professional consultant to provide professional guidance and technical support for blockchain research and practical exploration.

Pillar is an Australian wealth management company that manages more than $100 billion in assets covering 1.1 million Australians. At a recent media reception held by Pillar, Paul Brody, EY Global Technology Strategy Leader for the Americas, said,

Australia's current pension management system has failed to keep pace with technological innovation. For example, pension member identity management, account balance management, automatic settlement transaction records and reporting are all opportunities for blockchain application practice.

Paul Brody believes that

“Blockchain is the most viable technology to address the inefficiencies in the current wealth management system, which is holding the industry back from moving towards a paperless future. The root cause of the inefficiency lies in the industry’s technological infrastructure, and Australia’s current system is not up to the standard to meet the challenges of future technological change.”

Peter Brook, CEO of Pillar Financial Services, announced that Pillar has hired EY as a professional consultant to provide all-round guidance for its blockchain research practice, helping it to improve customer experience, open up innovative business models, improve settlement efficiency and reduce costs. Brook said:

“The understanding of blockchain in the pensions industry is still limited and superficial. Even though the largest companies in the industry recognize the huge potential of blockchain technology, they may not have the foresight to see that blockchain is a long-term strategic path. Today Pillar is announcing the start of a distributed technology project trial, and by the end of 2016 we will share information that proves the practical value of blockchain.”

(Peter Brook and Paul Brody)

Pillar identified about 20 specific projects that are applying blockchain to pension management. Paul Brody highlighted three of them:
Pension membership management for a single account Permission sharing of member data Trusted data management

As a global professional consulting service provider, EY has foresighted and taken on challenges in the wave of new technologies such as blockchain. It has explored 17 application scenarios for blockchain to reshape the wealth management value chain, from financial advice to pension management execution, settlement, and maintenance of existing members. EY calls blockchain the most revolutionary technology in the financial sector in the past 50 years.

Paul Brody firmly believes that blockchain is currently at the absolute peak of the technology maturity curve and has the potential to provide financial advisors with a more efficient way to scientifically analyze and securely manage data information.

"Current financial advisory services are facing tremendous pressure from regulators and consumers. Consumers' expectations for financial advice have increased. If financial advice is combined with academic theoretical basis, it will release huge potential."