I rarely know so little about the Pension PlayPen guests next week as I do of Ash Priestley of Novigi . He and his colleague Andrew were at #PensionsAC26 and met Guy Opperman who was impressed. They contacted us to talk through what they were doing and when I mentioned this to Guy he was excited for us. Why?

I’m going to be there because I find these two individuals intriguing and because I trust Guy Opperman’s opinion, Make your mind up. This is a session which is bound to be exciting and should attract people who care about bringing down the cost and increasing the accuracy of pension administration

The first testing of our Pensions Dashboard does not suggest we are on top of pensions data. Perhaps Australian Novigi can help. For goodness sake, we need open eyes and ears!

I have checked what the firm – Novigi – is doing to Australian’s and other far distant pension schemes. It’s the sort of thing that firms that are working with Artificial Intelligence can do. I know that Guy Opperman has an interest in UK pension (through Aptia) but I was surprised by the link he has to Novigi.

He reminded me that many processes we use today appeared impossible a year ago and much that will be possible in a year’s time , looks impossible today.

We’ve been approached by Ash Priest to talk with us at the Pension PlayPen’s event on Tuesday, details of how to join us are at the bottom.

Novigi’s  pitch is outlined below and if you click on this link you get a clear idea of the range of Australian and Far East Clients who employ them

Can Australia’s technical administrators teach us how to run savings plans. how do they feel about pensions? Is the Super going to work for people who have pots but no retirement wage? How can the huge success of Super help us with our private system?

There are in fact two Aussie gents presenting. While Ash Priest (pictured above ) is the CEO, Andrew worked at one of their partners “Apex” but  moved to Novigi last month. Chief Strategic Growth Officer is  what once was called “Head of Sales”.

So here are both of them together

And here’s Steve Goddard’s invitation

INVITATION Coffee Morning – Pensions Admin – What can we learn from the Australian model? Attending CPD included Tuesday 20th October 2026 at 10:30am You are cordially invited to our next Playpen Coffee Morning event. Here’s Steve Goddard after his initial meeting with two Australian business men. At this session we will be taking a deep dive into the Australian Pension Admin model and providers to see what they are doing well and perhaps what they are doing badly……what can the UK pensions industry learn? To that end, Australian Admin guru’s, Andrew Griffioen (Apex  now part of  Novigi) and Ash Priest (Novigi) will be giving us their thoughts. For the Coffee Morning session, the discussion will focus less on products and more on lessons from the Australian pensions system, with plenty of opportunity for attendees to share their own experiences and perspectives on the challenges facing the industry. Andrew leads Apex’s pension administration business in Australia, while Ash is CEO of their technology partner, Novigi. Together, Apex and Novigi support over 5 million members and A$1 trillion of assets across DB and DC schemes in both the public and corporate sectors in Australia, and they’re now exploring how that capability can be brought to the UK market….a challenge? We hope you can join.   You can use this link to join. or copy this URL into your diary https://teams.microsoft.com/meet/376390865634390?p=SEvq1xrFtOVo4yQCCt