RECREO FINANCIAL
DIGITAL REPORT 2020
Bulletproof superannuation in the cloud
IN ASSOCIATION WITH
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Disrupting superannuation administration with the cloud WRITTEN BY
HARRY MENEAR PRODUCED BY
ANDREW STUBBINGS
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Petros Gionis, CTO, and Dan Renoux, Head of Product, of Recreo Financial discuss disruptive, cloudbased superannuation administration platform, OneTrust
O
ver the last decade, the advent of new technologies and business practices has seen a pervasive digital transformation
sweep across the globe. Companies in global and domestic markets, across every industry, are feeling the pressure to adapt and adopt new solutions. 04
Those that don’t take steps to become the disruptors are at risk of being disrupted themselves. However, digital disruption has been more pervasive in some industries than others. In the Australian superannuation sector, for example, rigorous compliance and regulatory structures, as well as significant operational complexities, have created high barriers to market entry. “Superannuation platforms in Australia are ageing, with the most commonly used platforms dating back over 20 years. There has been limited innovation.” So explains Dan Renoux, Head of Product at superannuation technology firm Recreo. “These ageing platforms are difficult to maintain and now lack the features required to administer a fund in the modern day,” he adds. “Historically, trustees and administrators developed bespoke versions of platforms in
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“ What Recreo offers is a clean slate. It’s an attempt to build something to modern standards that comes in one whole package” — Dan Renoux, Head of Product, Recreo
order to support manual administration practices but nowadays it’s about automation and admin by exception only, which is harder to achieve with older technology” says Renoux, who would know as he’s been working in the superannuation business since leaving university in the late 90s. Petros Gionis, who took over as CTO of Recreo in September 2019, notes that, not only is the technology the superannuation industry is built on a complicated beast, but the
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industry itself is no picnic. “It’s a complex ecosystem. There are multiple superannuation providers in Australia, ranging from industry super providers - who manage funds for a specific sector like mining, health services, retail, etc. - and then you have the big retail funds offered by the banks - which are typically run-for-profit funds,” he explains, noting that, “more or less every one of those providers over the last 30 or so years has built its own bespoke superannuation system or, if not, has purchased one from a legacy vendor.” He adds that these systems are still, by and large, based on old technologies that companies today
07 end up spending tens of millions of
and fund administrators need to meet
dollars on to keep functioning.
future challenges,” says Renoux.
Recreo has spent the past few years
We spoke with Gionis and Renoux
developing the world’s first cloud-
to find out more about Recreo’s ambi-
native, SaaS-based superannuation
tious, disruptive project, the challenges
administration platform: OneTrust.
they faced along the way, and what’s
Built on a unified Microsoft technol-
next for the company poised to change
ogy stack and hosted by Amazon Web
the face of superannuation forever.
Services (AWS), OneTrust is the first truly modern, digital solution to enter the
WHAT IS SUPERANNUATION?
superannuation industry. “What Recreo
Created in 1992, superannuation is a
is offering is a clean slate. We’ve built a
compulsory employer and employee
platform that’s free of historical com-
contribution scheme designed to
plexity, that meets modern standards
provide income streams and lump
and provides the functionality trustees
sum payments to retirees. It’s similar w w w.re c re o . com . a u
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to national insurance and pensions in
buoyant than it otherwise might have
the UK and social security in the US.
been, there are tons of benefits.”
The money collected (which started
Collecting, managing, investing
out as a legislated 3% of salary con-
and redistributing these vast pools
tribution by employers and is slated
of capital is a complex financial and
to reach 12% by 2025) is reinvested in
regulatory task. Recreo believes that
the economy, something Renoux says
its new OneTrust system can not only
has been a real saving grace. “We’ve
improve on existing platforms, but also
got these massive pools of cash
help create efficiencies for its users.
that create buffers throughout the economy. It’s a fantastic safety net in
A CLEAN SLATE
lots of ways,” he explains. “It’s funded
“Recreo is the first company to do
infrastructure throughout the country,
superannuation administration in the
it’s kept the stock market a lot more
cloud,” says Renoux. You look at some
of these companies that are dragging
there was often a six week lag to pro-
the ball and chain of legacy solutions,
vision that and the project went into
and they’re spending tens of millions a
the region of hundreds of thousands
year upkeeping all these old systems
of dollars just to spin up a temporary
that can’t do what they need them to
environment to run a superannuation
do.” Gionis adds that these legacy sys-
system in test mode.”
tems are frequently deployed in house,
With Recreo’s cloud native solution,
which incurs a capital hit - as compa-
high up-front costs and lengthy setup
nies need to invest heavily in server
windows are eliminated. “We can
infrastructure, databases and software
spin up an environment in a matter
licenses to ensure systems are sup-
of days,” says Gionis. “I think those
ported and compliant. He recalls that,
advantages are too good to ignore,
“in previous roles when all we needed
which is where a lot of the legacy
was an environment to do some testing,
players can’t compete or keep up.”
E X E C U T I V E P R OF IL E :
Dan Renoux Title: Head of Product
Company: Recreo
Industry: Superannuation
Location: Australia
A superannuation veteran with experience at Barclays, Prudential and Colonial First State. Dan is a solution and product designer and consultant whose role now sees him be responsible for defining, prioritising and planning the delivery of product development for Recreo’s fully featured administration platform.
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Enhance your
Cyber Security Resilience Security Assurance & Consulting Managed Security Services Security Testing & Red Teaming
@TSSCyber
tsscyber.com.au
“ Recreo is the first company to do superannuation administration in the cloud” — Dan Renoux, Head of Product, Recreo
“Being able to quickly spin up and down environments and scale the specifications of servers with customer’s requirements have allowed pay-as-yougo pricing structures. Ultimately, the less a customer consumes the less they pay,” Renoux states. Not content to rest on its laurels,
When needs change, environ-
Recreo’s teams are setting even more
ments can simply be switched off or
ambitious goals for themselves: being
scaled down and the costs go away.
able to spin up complex superan-
No servers to repurpose or sell, no
nuation environments in the cloud in
long-term licenses sitting unused;
a matter of minutes. “The fact that
the age of superannuation as a ser-
Recreo’s timeframes for releases are
vice has arrived.
measured in days rather than months - that was a real eye-opener for me,”
SAFETY IN THE CLOUD
recalls Gionis. “It’s great that we have
Australian superannuation fund assets
the agility to deliver for our custom-
totaled approximately $3trn at the
ers faster than our competitors made
close of 2019. Recreo’s first customer,
possible by our talented team and our
Mine Super - which represents mining
leading-edge cloud infrastructure. It’s
and related assets across Australia -
a real competitive advantage,” he adds.
accounts for $11bn in superannuation w w w.re c re o . com . a u
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funds. With such vast amounts of
this sector, but we come at it from
capital being moved, invested and
multiple angles,” Gionis explains.
distributed to fund members, security
“First, we utilise all the Amazon
and threat prevention in the industry
security protection features that are
is a top priority. Offering superannua-
available to us, and operate our envi-
tion administration services through
ronments in line with best practices
the cloud means that the onus for
as espoused by AWS. Over and above
protection is shifted from on-premises
that, we also have our own coding and
security to Recreo itself. Both Renoux
security guidelines that we adhere
and Gionis are confident that the com-
to. We are ISO27001-compliant and
pany’s offering provides a step up in
have been through checks by the
security over other competitors.
Australian Prudential Regulation
“We obviously take cybersecurity very seriously, as does everyone in
Authority (APRA) to make sure we’re compliant there as well. Obviously, our
E X E C U T I V E P R OF IL E :
Petros Gionis Title: CTO
Company: Recreo
Industry: Superannuation
Location: Australia
Petros Gionis has over 25 years of experience in software development and systems engineering. He’s helped build weapons systems for submarines, worked in stock exchanges, and excels at designing mission critical systems to solve complex, high-priority problems.
“ The ability to spin up an environment in a matter of days is a massive advantage” — Petros Gionis, CTO, Recreo
than the industry has seen before. “what we’re trying to do,” Renoux adds, “is build a simple, scalable and most importantly secure platform that will outperform anything currently operating in the market.”
STRONGER TOGETHER Cybersecurity isn’t the only area
customers also risk assess and audit
where Recreo is turning to its part-
us as well, and the other thing we do
ner network to ensure its offering
is engage suppliers like TSS Cyber,
is best-of-breed. In today’s digitally
which offers threat detection and
transformed world, the companies
event monitoring.”
engaging with specialist vendors
Based in Canberra, Australia, TSS
and partners throughout their eco-
Cyber is one of Recreo’s most valu-
systems are providing better, more
able strategic partners. “They’re a
comprehensive services at lower
massive help to us,” adds Renoux.
costs. “One of the strategic deci-
“They look at the traffic through the
sions we made last year was that we
system to make sure nothing looks
weren’t going to try to be everything
wrong - so apart from all the systems
to everyone,” explains Renoux. “You
we have in place ourselves, we also
can get quite confused quite quickly
have teams of people monitoring the
trying to fulfil every role in the super-
data all day, every day, to make sure
annuation ecosystem - it’s a very big,
that anything abnormal is identified,
very diverse space.”
digested and flagged for action imme-
By engaging partners like Tata
diately.” By harnessing the power of
Consultancy Services - which pro-
the cloud and Recreo’s partner eco-
vides the resources that allow Recreo
system, OneTrust can boast a more
to flexibly scale up and down in an
watertight cybersecurity proposition
agile way - and MongoDB - which has w w w.re c re o . com . a u
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C O M PA N Y FACT S
• Global superannuation funds are worth $3trn in total • Recreo’s first customer, Mine Super, oversees a fund worth $11bn
lent its powerful database solutions to the OneTrust project - Recreo’s team has been able to focus on the important things that set their offering apart. “What we wanted to do was to be the best superannuation platform,” says Renoux. “But we’re not necessarily focusing on trying to be the best at everything by going it alone.” Gionis agrees: “Our strategy is to bank on our strengths and leverage them but, where we have a gap, absolutely look to our partners to fill that gap. All in all, that makes Recreo a stronger platform than it would be without its partners.” Cooperation and collaboration is also a vital part of Recreo’s internal structure. Gionis acknowledges that successfully managing his teams is a critical piece of the puzzle. “I’ve got a lot of talented, really bright engineers, architects, and business analysts. A lot of our IP resides in their heads,” he explains. “A big part of my job is keeping them motivated. I want them to come to work because they love it, love the technology that they’re working on and love solving the problems that they’re having thrown at them every day.” w w w.re c re o . com . a u
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MAKING IT BULLETPROOF Recreo plans to continue making use of its partner ecosystem and the expertise of its teams as it goes forward. Renoux explains that he and Gionis have a two-pronged approach to the coming year. After the mad dash towards launching OneTrust in September 2019, now is a good time to take stock and start putting effort into ensuring the platform lives up to their high standards. “It’s a new platform. We’ve been in production for about seven months now and we need 16
the system as a whole to be working optimally,” explains Renoux. “We’re bedding down this already-strong
“ What we’re doing is far more bulletproof that anything you could do on an on-prem system” — Dan Renoux, Head of Product, Recreo
platform and making sure that it’s as bulletproof as it can be.” As a systems architect of over 25 years, Gionis notes that he’s never worked with a system where things haven’t gone wrong. “When things do go wrong, we want to make sure that everything is traceable and recoverable.” The other aspect of Recreo’s plan is to embrace the power of integrated digital offerings to ensure that OneTrust is the best complete offering that it can be. While Recreo
2009
Year founded
70
Number of employees
17
makes sure its core offering is bul-
“It’s honestly a bit mind-boggling to
letproof, Renoux notes that this is the
comprehend when you consider that
year where the team is going to start
many have tried to achieve what we
adding “wow-factor” features. “We’re
have accomplished and failed,” he says.
talking about digital communications,
Before signing off, Gionis adds: I can’t
segmentation, an improved front-end
understate how complex this under-
portal, cross-platform interactions,
taking has been. The folks at Recreo
notifications - all that flashy stuff in a
have done an incredible job to get the
unified, seamless experience.”
platform where it is today.”
Looking back over the incredible journey that has resulted in OneTrust - the first cloud-native superannuation platform - Renoux shakes his head. w w w.re c re o . com . a u
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