26 September 2018
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Aegon’s chief transformation and digital officer Richard Denning, who was responsible for the platform’s development and its IT, has left the firm as users have been hit with extensive problems since the start of May.
Denning was tasked with leading Aegon’s IT strategy and was responsible for customer services, IT and platform development.
Aegon bought Cofunds in 2016 for £140m and had been planning the integration of the two platforms ever since. The platform tech boss had a big role in the re-platforming of Cofunds.
Over the May Bank Holiday weekend more than 400,000 users of the Cofunds retail platform and £37bn of assets were moved across to the Aegon platform.
It has since struggled with a number of issues. Professional Adviser most recently revealed it was taking about 45 working days for clients to switch to a rival platform.
These issues forced it to deploy 200 staff from other areas of the business in May and it spent £3 million on fixing issues in June.
Last week the company announced compensation payments would begin for clients who had been affected by problems arising from the move. It promises to pay a “£25 gesture of goodwill” to those who were “adversely affected” by the re-platforming move.
Denning has spent his entire career in financial services for businesses such as Prudential and Old Mutual.
His focus for the last 17 years has been on platforms, where he has held a number of senior executive positions.
