Pensions admin firm Festina ready to take on UK pension fund clients

Festina Finance, a provider of pension administration technology with major continental European pension investors among its clients, has said it is expanding into the UK market.

In an announcement today, the Danish fintech firm said it was now fully operational – ready to deliver its Festina Life and Pension Platform to defined benefit (DB), defined contribution (DC) and collective defined contribution (CDC) UK pension schemes.

In 2022, the €616bn Dutch pension investor APG signed a deal with Festina, a move that was followed by compatriot firm AZL opting for Festina as a supplier of its DC administration.

Festina already had Danish pension funds as clients, such as PensionDanmark.

Today, it said it was “scaling rapidly and is on track to support more than £700bn (€817bn) in assets and eight million savers”.

A spokesperson could not immediately say if Festina already had UK clients.

Dan McLaughlin, UK country head at Festina Finance, said that entering the UK market was “a natural and important step in our evolution as a company”, with the architecture of its platform having been intentionally designed to be configured for new markets.

“Over the past few months, we’ve quietly been laying the groundwork – listening, collaborating, and adapting to local needs,” he said.

According to McLaughlin, the UK pension landscape is “at an inflection point, with increasing complexity and member expectations colliding with legacy tech constraints”.

He said Festina wanted “to break that cycle with a new era of pension innovation”.

He namechecked and alluded to recent developments in the UK, such as the government’s push for consolidation to build “megafunds” and moves to allow multi-employer CDC pension funds.

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