Challenger gets green light for UK market

The UK subsidiary of Australian financial services groupChallenger Internationalhas been granted a licence by the UK’s Financial Services Authority (FSA) to bring its innovative annuity products to the British market.

The green-light from the FSA means Challenger will be free to roll-out its planned UK compulsory purchase annuity, which will complement the group's open annuity product, launched by the group in December last year.

Challenger International managing director Bill Ireland says the UK licence would allow the group to achieve its longer term goal of capturing a valuable part of the UK market.

Ireland says this would mean the group would be selling annuities in the UK at a similar annual rate as the already existing Australian annuities business does.

“In the shorter term we aim to be selling annuities in the UK at a similar annual rate as in our Australian annuities business so the target is to be selling at the rate of $300 million per annum in the UK by the end of 2002,” he says.

In late 2000, Challenger established a foothold in UK funds management and distribution with the purchase of Neville James Holdings, a specialist trader in life insurance endowment policies.

As well as making acquisitions, in the past 18 months Challenger has developed its UK infrastructure, including the establishment of outsourced administration systems, mortality reinsurance arrangements, and planning the distribution strategies for its existing sales force. In particular, this has involved extensive relationship building with Independent Financial Advisers (IFAs) in the UK market.