Implementation Analyst (BPA)

EQ Retirement Solutions is transforming the retirement and pensions markets with leading administration and technology solutions. With over 1200 employees globally, 189 years of knowledge and 11 million pension scheme members and policyholders, we are here to help people plan for a confident financial future by delivering innovative, reliable and customer-focused retirement services. Our teams are driven by a shared commitment to excellence, collaboration and making a real impact to the lives of our clients and customers.

Role Summary

EQ Retirement Solutions are seeking an Calculation Implementation Analyst to join our team responsible for onboarding and managing calculations for Bulk Purchase Annuity (BPA) Schemes. Significant experience in the pensions industry and a strong technical DB pensions background is required, knowledge of Bulk Purchase Annuities would be advantageous but not essential. It is an exciting time and opportunity to be a part of this Implementation team that is not only responsible for the core configuration of the system, but also working closely with the ongoing development of the Administrator system, including contributing to development plans, reviewing enhancement requests, Administrator rollouts and producing prototypes for new functionality.

Core Duties/Responsibilities

The successful candidates will be responsible for the following:

• Working across all aspects of the Administrator application
• Highlighting areas of potential development and efficiencies to be gained 
• Validating interface requirements
• Collaboration with clients (both internal and external) to understand their requirements for the BPA Product   
• Supporting with analysing, understanding, documenting and work with Senior Implementation Analyst or Line manager to estimate BPA client requirements
• Build and maintain relationships with internal stakeholders, and BPA client stakeholders
• Improving the BPA implementation practices and procedures, including maintenance of confluence pages
• Working closely with the BPA Product (framework) development teams to refine and improve the system, including User Acceptance Testing
• Take ownership of your daily and project based tasks, updating project plans and Jira Tickets
• Pre Sales; be active in the assessing of new BPA transactions and their fit, or development requirement, to enable successful onboarding and administration
• Admin Handover; Ensure smooth handover to the BPA BAU Admin Team to facilitate excellent customer service and reduce queries from the admin team
• Hypercare; Ensure any teething issues are dealt with quickly, effectively and resolve all issues     
• Template Maintenance (e.g. Data Migration Report, Onboarding pack etc)
• BPA Lifecycle knowledge; understand the full cycle and our role at each stage. Be active in keeping knowledge up to date
• DB Pension knowledge; understand DB pensions and be active in keeping knowledge up to date, in particular GMPE

This role will be within the calculations discipline within the team and will require specific skills related to that area, namely:

• Maintaining integrated calculation spreadsheets;
• Ratifying factor usage and maintaining factor feeds
• Identifying Calc Requirements
• Be responsible for the Calculation Engine (Automation), ensuring that new transactions and requirement can function
• Create and agree with our client Scenario Matrix for testing
• Scenario Testing & Results, resolving all queries with our client
• BAU Calc Support (Manual Calcs)
• Perform and obtain sign off from our client the Monthly Bulk Calculations
• Support admin in completing Pension Increases; understanding requirements, ensure set up on ADM correctly and provide technical support

Skills, Capabilities and Attributes

Educated to degree standard preferred but not essential:

• Extensive experience and knowledge of Defined Benefit Pension Calculations (preferably GMPe), and able to articulate this knowledge to others
• Relevant qualifications in the Pensions or Actuarial Industry desirable (e.g. Pensions Management Institute Certification)
• Demonstrate commercial awareness & operational efficiencies / income generation in current role
• Strong excel ability
• Interpret and implement legislative changes making use of Regulatory & Pensions Support team advice where necessary

What We Offer

• Save For Your Future - Equiniti Pension Plan; Equiniti matches your pension contributions up to 10%
• Health and Wellbeing – Employee Assistance Programme: counselling, legal & wellbeing support for colleagues and their households. Life assurance cover at 4x salary with the ability to purchase enhance cover.
• Employee discounts – Discounts and cashback at your favourite high street stores through our EQ Wins Platform.
• Flexible Benefits – The ability to purchase a wide variety of benefits through our flex plan; gadgets, travel insurance, will writing, holiday trading and more.
• Time Off – Typically 29 days holiday + bank holidays. 2 volunteer days to get involved with a charity of your choosing.
• Winning together – Equiniti ICON award vouchers; recognising the individuals going above and beyond to help the business succeed.
• Learning & Development – Investment in LinkedIn Learning for all colleagues.