InvestmentLink's plans to realise its vision of becoming a prime source of electronic information on financial products other than just managed funds took a step forward yesterday.
InvestmentLink Australia (ILA), which is a major shareholder in the New Zealand business and supplies the systems, has formed a strategic partnership with systems integration specialists CPS Group to achieve this goal.
The announcement comes seven months after ILA announced it was looking for a strategic partner with complementary skills to take the business to the next level.
"Together we aim to facilitate electronic commerce solutions that raise customer service levels and drive down distribution costs without compromising on any company's capacity to develop competitive advantage," ILNZ chairman Maurice MacLaren says.
"InvestmentLink's vision in New Zealand incorporates becoming the pre-eminent electronic commerce channel between a broad range of product providers' client registries and clients' advisers."Click here for earlier story on ILNZ's vision
It plans to go beyond managed funds and offer electronic data services to products such as shares, insurance products, deposits and even banking transactions.
Under the deal CPS proposes to initially purchase Austraclear's 25 per cent shareholding holding in ILA, and in June 1999 it will subscribe for further equity to bring its shareholding to 51 per cent and is offering to purchase the remaining ILA shares in June 2000, subject to shareholder approval.
CPS is an Australian organisation that has been building a sophisticated range of technology skills and services locally and internationally since 1968.
It has successfully implemented advanced technological systems all over the world, and has a branch office in Canberra and associated companies in Sydney, Wellington, St Paul Minnesota USA and Kuala Lumpur.
CPS's expertise is concentrated in research and development in key areas of multi-platform systems integration, electronic commerce and border management technology.
Most recently CPS developed the Electronic Travel Authority System [ETAS] on behalf of the Australian Department of Immigration. ETAS, which enables the issuing of electronic visa's by overseas travel agents recently won the Australian Information Industry Association award.
InvestmentLink's plans to realise its vision of becoming a prime source of electronic information on financial products other than just managed funds took a step forward yesterday.