Report: MetLife UK expands ecommerce services

Insurance giant MetLife's U.K. branch recently announced it has expanded its ecommerce services in an attempt to help independent financial advisers, or IFAs, streamline sales.

According to a Financial Times report, a new multi-channel extranet solution will support sales and servicing of MetLife's products to IFAs through an online payment gateway. Products included in the expanded ecommerce service include MetLife's retirement portfolios, trustee retirement portfolios, guaranteed investment bonds and "income-for-life" bonds.

The report stated that IFAs will be able to use the service to access online valuations and quotes.

Dominic Grinstead, managing director of MetLife Europe's U.K. branch, told the Financial Times "investing in ecommerce capabilities is crucial in the run-up to the retail distribution review and will support our long-term expansion plans."

According to Anthony Williams, manager of Evolve Financial Planning, IT improvements of this kind "can only be positive." Williams told the Financial Times "the IT solutions that financial planners have in place at the moment are fairly rudimentary. They have a long way to go to get to where they should be, especially compared with our counterparts in the U.S."

The new ecommerce expansion follows a recent 10-year agreement between Metlife and business process outsourcing company Capita Group.