Recreo June 2020

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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RECREO FINANCIAL

Petros Gionis, CTO, and Dan Renoux, Head of Product, of Recreo Financial discuss disruptive, cloudbased superannuation administration platform, OneTrust

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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.

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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

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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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