Sopra Steria has today announced a two and a half year contract extension with Royal London Group, the largest mutual life, pensions and investment company in the UK. The contract extends Sopra Steria’s current Applications Management engagement and will run until 2022, together with a minimum contractual commitment to support the delivery of Royal London’s business change portfolio over the next five years.

Sopra Steria began working with Royal London in 2014 when it led the separation, migration and integration of the Co-operative Life & Savings business into Royal London’s estate. This was one of the largest divestment and separation projects undertaken in Europe involving the separation and transfer of IT and business assets including customer data, on-line and batch systems and processes.

Post-migration, Sopra Steria’s relationship has deepened as it has supported the transformation of Royal London’s Life and Savings operation, significantly reducing operating costs and risks, and delivering a large change portfolio to enhance customer services.

The new contract will build on these strong foundations, providing a range of capabilities to facilitate the delivery of Royal London’s service excellence and transformational change objectives.

Andy McGarrie, Chief Technology Officer, Royal London Group, said: “Sopra Steria have successfully supported Royal London Group in the Application Maintenance and Development arena since 2014 and through optimisation initiatives have helped us to reduce ongoing operating costs on our closed book estate.  Following a review of our engagement we are now in a position to re-focus our attention – driving productivity, value and efficiency in the area of application development and change delivery portfolio. We are pleased that Sopra Steria is able to adapt their working relationship with us in a way that more closely meets our business priorities.”

Melba Foggo, Managing Director, Consulting UK, Sopra Steria, said: “This exciting news reflects our excellent delivery track record over the past four years and the committed development pipeline provides a significant opportunity to further develop our relationship as a trusted service and change delivery partner for Royal London.”