History
Finetre is the only commercial provider to successfully deploy a proven, scalable online platform for automated annuity order-entry. Just 10 years ago, the automation of annuity sales was considered impractical by the financial services industry. Today, Finetre has not only changed reality by delivering a high-volume, broadly-deployed solution, but also helped define the means by which future annuity and life e-commerce will be conducted.
Begun as AnnuityNet in 1997, Finetre’s original goal was to bring annuity sales directly to consumers by way of the Internet. With the release of the 2nd generation of the AnnuityNet Platform, in 2001 Finetre changed its business model to serve as an exchange for financial services institutions. The service focus shifted to regulatory compliance and processing efficiency at scale. The next several years saw dynamic growth as Finetre added major carriers and broker/dealers to its client base while also contributing to the development of industry standards such as the ACORD Product Profile for Annuities (PPfA).
While Finetre began mainstream usage of the PPfA in 2003, it was the achievement of marked maturity for both Finetre and the AnnuityNet Platform that made 2004 and 2005 especially significant. During this time, Finetre extended its depth by providing clients with additional test environments and numerous new features and capabilities. With all necessary features now well-established, development emphasis shifted to fulfilling client wish-list items, bringing constant marginal improvement to platform users. By the end of 2005, 4 Finetre carrier clients had each exceeded $1 billion in premium processed on AnnuityNet for the year – a major milestone.
At industry request, in 2006 Finetre began to apply its technology to the development of the LifeSpeed Platform for term and permanent life insurance products. Also in 2006, the one-millionth automated annuity transaction supported by AnnuityNet crossed the platform on August 23. In October, Finetre was purchased by Ebix, Inc., a leading international provider of software services and IT solutions to the insurance industry (NASDAQ: “EBIX”), adding to Finetre’s depth and reach. In November, we imported into a production environment PPfA Number 100,000.
Today, Finetre processes approximately 25,000 annuity and life insurance transactions and over $2 billion in premium every month. We have approaching 2,000 different annuity and life products available for processing and are deployed at over 30 different broker/dealers. Finetre originates about 70% of the total applications processed on DTCC’s IPS platform and over one-third of the total annuity business in the US full-service brokerage sector.
We continue to pursue our goals of developing efficient processing, compliance, and suitability monitoring support demanded by the annuity and life marketplace. Also, to increase efficiency at a higher level, we have pursued integration with our client partners’ business operations at a strategic level. Through further integration of our life insurance support capabilities, new improvements created through the third generation of our platform, and expanded resources provided by Ebix, Finetre enters 2007 by bringing industry leadership to an entirely new, revolutionary level.
