TCS completes major Scottish Widows policy migration to digital

Tata Consultancy Services has completed the migration of more than 3.8 million Scottish Widows life and pensions policyholders' data onto its TCS BaNCS administration platform.

The migration was led by Diligenta, TCS's subsidiary that focuses on the life and pensions sector in the United Kingdom. This project involved replacing multiple legacy systems with a single, unified digital platform, and is described as one of the largest policy migrations in UK financial services to date.

As part of the transformation programme, the final tranche of data for over 900,000 customers was transferred, finalising the migration process for the full population of Scottish Widows life and pension policyholders to the TCS BaNCS platform and associated digital services ecosystem.

The initiative further included the deployment of TCS's Next-gen BaNCS Wealth administration platform for the UK market. With this rollout, approximately 980,000 retail customer portfolios were successfully migrated. The new platform is expected to support a range of savings and investment products, including Individual Savings Accounts and Open Ended Investment Companies, while also enabling new digital servicing options for customers.

Scottish Widows, the life and pensions division of Lloyds Banking Group, originally entered into a 15-year agreement with TCS in 2017. The partnership was established to modernise the company's operations, simplify its operating model, and provide end-to-end policy administration for 4 million customers by consolidating services on the TCS BaNCS platform.

According to Scottish Widows, streamlining to a single, digitally-enabled core administration system is central to improving the efficiency of its policy management processes as well as enhancing customer service.

Donald MacKechnie, Chief Operating Officer, and Managing Director, Longstanding, Scottish Widows said, "We have reached an important milestone in our transformation programme, and our ongoing relationship with Diligenta and TCS. We look forward to continuing to enhance customer experience by providing customers with better and faster service, enabled by digitisation."

This large-scale data migration reflects the scalability and technical capabilities of the TCS BaNCS platform in supporting significant operational transitions for major financial services providers. TCS BaNCS is currently deployed at more than 500 institutions worldwide, with over 20 million policies under administration in the United Kingdom alone.

The BaNCS platform offers a complete policy administration solution, incorporating digital tools for data management, imaging, workflow automation, and integrated business rules - features that align with current industry moves towards digital-first customer engagement and modernisation of core financial infrastructure.

R Vivekanand, President, Product and Platforms, TCS, said, "The team has set a new benchmark following a migration of this scale. Our relationship with Scottish Widows continues to thrive, and we look forward to further enhancing what we do with them including leveraging state of the art technology developments like AI to further improve digital customer experience".

Simplifying policy administration is regarded as a key factor in helping financial services organisations reduce risk, enhance operational efficiency, and support new regulatory and customer expectations for rapid, digital service delivery.

TCS has handled several major pension scheme migrations in the UK and Ireland in recent years, including taking on the administration of National Employment Savings Trust in 2011 and agreeing to a 15-year contract with Ireland's Department of Social Protection to overhaul the Irish pension system in 2024. TCS also collaborates with a number of banking and insurance institutions in the UK, including Lloyds, Nationwide, Barclays, The Coventry Building Society, London Mutual Credit Union, and Aviva.

The latest Scottish Widows migrations demonstrate the ongoing trend among UK financial institutions to retire legacy systems in favour of digital, unified platforms that aim to support a broader range of products and a more responsive customer service environment.