This is a new award category for Insurance Asset Risk which seeks to recognise a software provider that can demonstrate speed of implementation, flexibility, robustness, scalability, transparency, technical support and exceeds client expectations.
IFRS 9 has enjoyed far less airtime than IFRS 17 because it is already live and running and insurers are more confident about it than they are with the latter. Nevertheless, both standards will introduce more volatility to the balance sheet and help from software providers is, therefore, welcomed.
To tackle this issue - and the requirements for transparency brought about by IFRS 9 - this year's winner, Clearwater Analytics helped its 700 insurer clients globally with a centralised data solution.
One of the key challenges to carrying out changes for IFRS 9 is centralised data. Clearwater aggregates, independently validates, and reconciles investment data daily, providing complete transparency into the investment portfolio.
With no software to install it offers quick onboarding and maintains stronger efficiency with faster reporting and period-end close times. Indeed, Clearwater's clients reduced the time spent preparing reports by an average 46%.
Mark Gillespie, director of European operations, said: "IFRS 9 brings about a new level of transparency into an investment portfolio. With the majority of our clients impacted by this regulation, we took the initiative to ensure our solution had the tools in place ahead of time for clients who elected for early adoption. Because of that, Clearwater already has clients successfully operating under IFRS 9 with the support of daily and independent investment data aggregation, reconciliation and validation."