TORONTO, Sept. 24, 2003 – The Canadian Group Retirement Services business of Sun Life Financial Inc. (NYSE/TSX:SLF) has established another financial
services industry benchmark by becoming the only Defined Contribution Pension plan supplier to be certified ISO 9001:2000. This follows the award of ISO 9002 certification to the GRS business in 1998.
The latest certification applies to Recordkeeping and Plan Member Services for DC Pension Plans, Group RRSP’s, Stock Plans, and Savings Plans, for Sun Life Financial’s National Account customers. “ISO accreditation is relatively rare in the service industry as it involves a high level of rigour, discipline, and many years of investment and commitment to refining processes, systems, and quality measures,” said Kevin Dougherty, Vice-President, Group
Retirement Services. “As the only DC pension plan supplier in Canada
accredited with this designation, we have the ability to provide our customers with a unique and tangible commitment to the quality of our services, and peace of mind with regard to the governance and oversight of their pension plans.”
“Given that our product is a service which is intangible, in many ways it requires even more care in managing quality. This new version of ISO is geared much more to the service industry,” said Marie Foggetti, Director, Plan Implementation and Knowledge Broadcasting. “From a high level, the differences centre around a process approach, factoring in key measures such as customer satisfaction and continual improvement. The new version of ISO further strengthens our core business processes and our commitment to quality, which is at the heart of our mission and vision.”
The ISO 9000 series of standards was developed to provide guidelines to assist organizations implement and operate quality management systems. The revised series of standards (ISO 9000:2000 series) consists of three standards (ISO 9000, ISO 9001, ISO 9004) that are internationally accepted and provide a consistent basis for understanding requirements relating to product and service quality.
Sun Life Financial’s Group Retirement Services division is the leading supplier of Pension Plan services in Canada with over $25 billion of assets under administration, serving one out of every three major employers in Canada.
Sun Life Financial is a leading international financial services organization providing a diverse range of wealth accumulation and protection products and services to individuals and corporate customers. Tracing its roots back to 1865, Sun Life Financial and its partners today have operations in key markets worldwide, including Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Japan, Indonesia, India, China and Bermuda. As of June 30, 2003, the Sun Life Financial group of companies had total assets under management of CDN $342.2 billion.
Sun Life Financial Inc. trades on the Toronto (TSX), New York (NYSE) and Philippine (PSE) stock exchanges.