Attachments for New Business Is Now Live

Attachments (IAT), a multi-function support service, is now live and streamlining the processing of paperwork for new business in annuities by allowing for the electronic exchange of digital (imaged) documents, signatures and forms. These various forms of unstructured data, which traditionally have been manually copied and shared, can now be handled as electronic attachments to the core messaging process provided through Insurance & Retirement Services.

"Regulatory developments have highlighted the industry's need to be able to electronically exchange imaged documents and forms during the pre-sale, new-business and post-issue process of annuity products," said Randi Gordon, DTCC Vice President, Product Management. "Attachments meets this need by allowing for the transmission of an attachment message and providing a linkage between that message, which is a web-based XML message, and a message in one of our mainframe core services. For future web services, the data and attachment will be combined into a single message."

After 15 customers completed testing, Attachments went live officially in September with the first transactions. More distributors are currently in development to add the service. In order to utilize the solution, both sender and receiver of the Attachment message must be NSCC members.

Adding Value and Reducing Cost

At DTCC, we have been very successful at leveraging our technology and infrastructure to serve multiple financial sectors," said Adam Bryan, DTCC Managing Director. "We continually search for ways to re-purpose a solution, which increases the value of the original development investment for our customers. Attachments was developed with this flexibility in mind, immediately filling a need in new business transactions and presenting an expanding number of possible uses in the insurance space and beyond."

Automation of the manual processing and sharing of paper documentation with Attachments supports an audit trail and eliminates lost paperwork. Firms should realize savings from reduced mailing and handling costs while enhancing service levels to trading partners and customers by producing more in-good-order contracts.

Attachments is the second web service to be developed by Insurance & Retirement Services in XML message format based on the ACORD Life and Annuity Standard. The first web service, Fund Transfers (FTR), was introduced in 2008. Next in line for web services will be Replacements (RPL) scheduled to begin piloting in early 2010.

Because it was developed as a multi-function support service, the Attachments capability is scheduled for inclusion on the Access desktop application to be used in conjunction with core services.For information on Attachments, please contact your relationship manager.