UK – Consultancy firm Watson Wyatt says it has five clients for its ePA web-based pension administration system.

The system was launched in April 2002 with its first client, Royal & Sun Alliance. “Since then four clients have gone live,” said Watson Wyatt’s Clive Witherington.

Two of them were health insurer Bupa and drugs firm AstraZeneca. He was unable to name the other two for reasons of client confidentiality, though he said they were “household names” in the hi-tech and travel industries.

Witherington said the system saves costs for clients and gives them more day-to-day control over pensions administration.

“We don’t see it as a tool for generating extra revenues,” he said.

The firm recently launched a similar product in the US called PensionPath. Witherington said there were differences between ePA and PensionPath. The European product covered both defined benefit and defined contribution plans, while PensionPath was solely DB.

Last week Watson Wyatt in the US says it expects revenues from its international operations to rise by around 10% in 2003.