The volume of automated investment transactions through the ViaNova project has doubled as a direct result of auto-enrolment.

Altus Business Systems reported that transactions have doubled in a 12 month period to June 2014 among its clients after a number of years of minimal growth.

Dozens of the major players in the pensions industry are connected to the ViaNova working group, which was established in 2005 to define and maintain a standard set of rules for automated order processing and the publication of prices and holdings messages in the corporate pensions industry.
Howard Finnegan, head of sales and marketing at Altus, said:

"Fortunately, this sharp increase in volume witnessed over the last twelve months has been completely painless and has gone almost unnoticed because administrators and providers have adopted the ViaNova market practice for automating the complete range of interactions between pensions scheme administrators and fund managers."

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"We have been encouraged to see that a growing number of those using the ViaNova market practice are achieving automation rates in excess of 90% with their customers."
The ViaNova market practice, introduced in 2008, was designed to be an open and interoperable standard to automate the interactions between pension scheme administrators and fund managers.
It promotes 'Straight Through Processing' - the process whereby two computer systems can exchange information in an electronic format, which can be automatically validated, and processed.
ViaNova is the project name for the UK Fund Market Practice Group Occupational DC Pensions Trading Market Practice.
The group was set up because companies wanted to address the expense of the high degree of manual data processing and communications.
Companies involved with ViaNova include: Actuare, Altus, AquilaHeywood, AXA Wealth, Barnett Waddingham, Bravura, Brown Brothers Harriman, BlackRock, Calastone, Fidelity, Hymans Robertson, Idea Group, Legal & General Investment Management, Mercer, RPMI, Standard Life, SWIFT and Towers Watson.