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May 17, 2021

How SAP and Northern Trust are Jointly Meeting the Challenges of Financial Asset Management for the Insurance Industry

Northern Trust and SAP introduce a new partnership for our Insurance Investment Accounting and Analytics Services.

by Chris Dvorak, Head of Insurance Solutions

As seen on SAP’s website.

Over the last decade, digital transformation has empowered companies to create new business models, control costs, maintain compliance, and enhance customer loyalty. COVID-19 has accelerated this digital transformation journey, forcing companies to ask: “Are our digital initiatives effective and have they been the right ones?” For Northern Trust, the answer to this question is a resounding “yes,” thanks in part to the strong partnership the company has built with SAP that delivers innovative, scalable systems and business-driven content and services.

Northern Trust: A Market-Leading Approach to Financial Asset Solutions for Insurance Companies

Named the “Best Custodian” by Private Equity Wire in 2020, Northern Trust serves more than 180 insurance clients worldwide with more than $1 Trillion in assets. The company has been providing financial management solutions to insurance companies for more than 90 years.

Several years ago, Northern Trust identified the need for an outsourced investment accounting solution in the marketplace that was robust, scalable, and flexible. In our current low interest environment, insurance companies have had to be creative in how they trade and what they trade, and real-time insights across their entire portfolio are critical to business success. Yet Northern Trust’s clients were struggling to have all their assets on a single platform and instead relied on a patchwork of disparate solutions. Others were going through the process of bringing their derivatives in to see a consolidated view of their true holdings and were struggling to understand their accounting.

Northern Trust sought a cloud-based, agnostic platform that would allow clients to customize their ledger, support every type of trading option, allow management of all asset classes from privates to derivatives, and accurately represent their position. The right digital solution would need to solve the challenges caused by extracting accounting data, working with data across the globe, and integrating multiple data platforms– all while providing data in real-time.

SAP’s Financial Asset Management (“FAM”) system meets these needs and more, providing a one-of-a-kind investment accounting and analytics services platform that marries technology and service. Northern Trust considers FAM to be the iron-clad calculation engine for everything that happens for its clients’ portfolios. By adding the cloud-based engine for investment accounting and analytics, this gives Northern Trust’s clients the ability to truly “interrogate their data” rather than cobbling together Excel files and PDF files.

SAP & Northern Trust: Building an Innovative Partnership for Insurance Accounting and Analytics

Northern Trust started as an SAP customer, operating SAP FAM for 5+ years, before growing their relationship into a partnership that helped Northern Trust innovate on its current business model. Together, the companies provide both the market-leading investment accounting platform and robust services. We couple the best-in-class technology with Northern Trust’s fully dedicated service team led by insurance accounting experts that are focused on clients’ unique requirements. It’s a special partnership that enables exceptional solutions and services to benefit customers that otherwise would not be possible.

The partnership offers numerous advantages to insurers, including ensuring compliance with statuary reporting for all 50 states and accounting for several bases in parallel (e.g., US-GAAP and IFRS). The partnership unburdens insurers from having to maintain institutional investment management expertise in-house. With Northern Trust's leadership, insurers can be confident they're current on rapidly evolving best practices.

Learn What’s Next from the Experts: Listen to the Podcast

By 2025, many insurers will be engaging with cross-industry ecosystem providers and defining opportunities, beyond managing risk. Solutions like SAP and Northern Trust’s platform and services are essential to help insurers with automation and real-time data insights to embrace the future.

Learn more on SAP’s “Industry Insights” podcast. Josephine Monberg interviews Toni Tomic, Global Head of Insurance at SAP, and Chris Dvorak, Head of Insurance Solutions at Northern Trust, on what’s next for this successful partnership.

Christopher Dvorak portrait

Christopher Dvorak

Practice Executive, Asset Owners, Americas
Chris is responsible for the Insurance Solutions, Self-Managed Asset Owner (SMAO), Large Corporate West, and Correspondent Trust Services business segments within the Asset Owners Americas division at Northern Trust.
READ BIO

Confidentiality Notice:  This communication is confidential, may be privileged, and is meant only for the intended recipient.  If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender as soon as possible.  All materials contained in this presentation, including the description of Northern Trust, its systems, processes and pricing methodology, are proprietary information of Northern Trust. In consideration of acceptance of these materials, the recipient agrees that it will keep all such materials strictly confidential and that it will not, without the prior written consent of Northern Trust, distribute such materials or any part thereof to any person outside the recipient’s organization or to any individual within the recipient’s organization who is not directly involved in reviewing this presentation, unless required to do so by applicable law.  If the recipient is a consultant acting on behalf of a third party client, the recipient may share such materials with its client if it includes a copy of these restrictions with such materials.  In such event, the client agrees to comply with these restrictions in consideration of its accepting such materials.

© 2022 Northern Trust Corporation. Head Office: 50 South La Salle Street, Chicago, Illinois 60603 U.S.A. Incorporated with limited liability as an Illinois corporation under number 0014019. Products and services provided by subsidiaries of Northern Trust Corporation may vary in different markets and are offered in accordance with local regulation. This material is directed to professional clients only and is not intended for retail clients. For Asia-Pacific markets, it is directed to expert, institutional, professional and wholesale clients or investors only and should not be relied upon by retail clients or investors. For legal and regulatory information about our offices and legal entities, visit northerntrust.com/disclosures. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in the text belong solely to the author, and not necessarily to the author's employer, organization, committee or other group or individual. The following information is provided to comply with local disclosure requirements: The Northern Trust Company, London Branch, Northern Trust Global Investments Limited, Northern Trust Securities LLP and Northern Trust Investor Services Limited, 50 Bank Street, London E14 5NT. Northern Trust Global Services SE, 10 rue du Château d’Eau, L-3364 Leudelange, Grand-Duché de Luxembourg, incorporated with limited liability in Luxembourg at the RCS under number B232281; authorised by the ECB and subject to the prudential supervision of the ECB and the CSSF; Northern Trust Global Services SE UK Branch, UK establishment number BR023423 and UK office at 50 Bank Street, London E14 5NT; Northern Trust Global Services SE Sweden Bankfilial, Ingmar Bergmans gata 4, 1st Floor, 114 34 Stockholm, Sweden, registered with the Swedish Companies Registration Office (Sw. Bolagsverket) with registration number 516405-3786 and the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority (Sw. Finansinspektionen) with institution number 11654; Northern Trust Global Services SE Netherlands Branch, Viñoly 7th floor, Claude Debussylaan 18 A, 1082 MD Amsterdam; Northern Trust Global Services SE Abu Dhabi Branch, registration Number 000000519 licenced by ADGM under FSRA #160018; Northern Trust Global Services SE Norway Branch, org. no. 925 952 567 (Foretaksregisteret) [VAT if applicable], address Third Floor, Haakon VIIs gate 6 0161 Oslo, is a Norwegian branch of Northern Trust Global Services SE supervised by Finanstilsynet. Northern Trust Global Services SE Leudelange, Luxembourg, Zweigniederlassung Basel is a branch of Northern Trust Global Services SE. The Branch has its registered office at Grosspeter Tower, Grosspeteranlage 29, 4052 Basel, Switzerland, and is authorised and regulated by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority FINMA. The Northern Trust Company Saudi Arabia, PO Box 7508, Level 20, Kingdom Tower, Al Urubah Road, Olaya District, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia 11214-9597, a Saudi Joint Stock Company – capital 52 million SAR. Regulated and Authorised by the Capital Market Authority License #12163-26 CR 1010366439. Northern Trust (Guernsey) Limited (2651)/Northern Trust Fiduciary Services (Guernsey) Limited (29806)/Northern Trust International Fund Administration Services (Guernsey) Limited (15532) are licensed by the Guernsey Financial Services Commission. Registered Office: Trafalgar Court, Les Banques, St Peter Port, Guernsey GY1 3DA. Northern Trust International Fund Administration Services (Ireland) Limited (160579)/Northern Trust Fiduciary Services (Ireland) Limited (161386),  Registered Office: Georges Court, 54-62 Townsend Street, Dublin 2, D02 R156, Ireland.