Royal London Increases Efficiency And Security With Mailock

Royal London is the UK’s largest mutual life, pensions, and investment company. They joined Aegon as the next major financial services provider to deploy Mailock and have been using the service since 2021.

Will Pritchett, Royal London’s Chief Technology Officer, said:

"The safety and security of our clients’ data is paramount. Given the rise of increasingly sophisticated cybercrime techniques, we need to continuously respond to new challenges. Mailock will reinforce our existing security measures by helping to secure our communications and to ensure that the person opening the email is authorised to do so, thereby also helping to protect against fraud. It’s simple and intuitive, with advisers able to open and reply to any Mailock email sent to them free of charge."

A Conversation with John McGlynn, Sales Business Change Manager - Royal London

We spoke with John McGlynn, who gave us deeper insight into Royal London’s experience with Mailock so far:

A Complete Solution

Prior to adopting Mailock, Royal London had already taken steps to secure their email communications but relied on two separate email encryption services, one for communicating with end-users and one for corresponding with advisers. They needed a solution they could use to communicate with both audiences.

"Upgrading to Mailock has improved matters greatly in that it has allowed us to move to one system, one that can be used for both the adviser and the end customer."

Unipass Identity Authentication

Mailock makes it easy for advisers to open secure emails by using Unipass Identity authentication (which has already been adopted by 8 out of 10 financial advisers). This was important to Royal London.

"Our advisers need to be able to open and read our emails instantaneously, so any authenticator can’t put a process in place that prevents this from happening and stops the required instant ping-pong of emails between providers and advisers. Happily, Mailock doesn’t."

Smooth Implementation

Royal London has also extended their use of Mailock for communicating with customers and have been receiving excellent feedback. The implementation process was ‘smooth’ and easily adopted by their admin teams.

"We had a dedicated project team here and a series of meetings with the Mailock team to plan and execute. Great care was taken in the roll-out, working closely with the Mailock team on delivery, comms, and support."

Part Of The ESG Roadmap

The recent annual COP26 conference in Scotland has increased pressure on financial services companies to cut their carbon emissions, while the UK is collaborating with countries worldwide to ensure net zero is reached by 2050.

Aegon’s recent carbon-saving success through the use of Mailock demonstrates the considerable impact big corporates can have in a short period of time by digitising their communications.

This is very much part of the ESG roadmap for Royal London too.

"Anything that can be sent electronically is sent electronically and using Mailock ties in with every stated principle of our ESG commitments. There is no doubt that having a secure and industry-recognised encryption facility allows us to save on paper and postage costs when sending information that previously could only be sent by post."

Increased Efficiency

Alongside reducing the risk of cybercrime and the opportunity to reduce their environmental impact, Royal London has also benefitted from increased efficiency.

"Efficiency-wise the introduction of Mailock has made a big difference. It has allowed us to move to one system for all, making a significant financial saving and its capabilities mean that we spend far less time fielding queries or solving issues than we did previously. It has also had an impact right across the Royal London business in that previous inconsistencies in approach between different business areas have been removed.

Feedback from advisers so far has been excellent. The ease of access through a Unipass log-in or the alternative simplicity of receiving a verification code to proceed has been welcomed. Sure, there have been queries from advisers, but these are always usually more to do with the fact we have encrypted something rather than the methodology deployed.

From a governance, data security and ease of use point of view what we gain is significant and allows us to demonstrate to our advisers/customers that we take protecting their data seriously, at the same time as offering them an industry platform on which to use/receive and send free of charge. The ultimate reward for us is the Mailock system having no detrimental effect on our ability to write and meet our new business targets each year."