Dear All,
Following an intensive period of board deliberation, market discussion, engagement with Lloyd’s and Deloitte I am writing to set out Placing Platform Ltd.’s (PPL) plans for the roll out of PPL Next Gen.
It is anticipated that NextGen 1.0 will be released to the market during February 2023. NextGen 1.0 will replicate most of the current system’s capabilities with an improved user interface. It will support the placing lifecycle from quote through to bind. It will also handle endorsements. In February 2023 PPL will also publish detailed technical specifications for the API’s needed to support placement and firm order. NextGen 2.0, which will be made available to the market in June/July 2023, will incorporate these API’s together with usability improvements agreed with the PPL Market User & Ops Committee. PPL are finalising the commercial details of plans with Deloitte, and these are expected to be completed satisfactorily in the next fortnight. Detailed plans on migration to NextGen 1.0 in February 2023 will be developed after market consultation during Q4 2022.
In order to support market confidence in these plans PPL is enhancing its SteerCo Oversight Committee. The current SteerCo will be expanded to include not only PPL NEDs Theo Butt (Convex), Bob James (Lloyd’s), Justin Emrich (Atrium) and Matt Unsworth (Aon) but also Deloitte representatives and the PPL Executive team led by Sue Jakobek. It will have an independent Chair.
Separately in Q3/Q4 2022 work will begin on developing a road map for aligning PPL with F@L and the work of the Data Council. This alignment work will set out the path to capturing the data fields set out in the recently published Core Data Record. This work will be conducted by a team from Deloitte. It is expected that this work will set the agenda for PPL in 2023.
Sue Jakobek, CEO of PPL, will be retiring in December 2022. She will be succeeded by Joe Gordon, COO of QBE International, following his retirement from QBE. Joe has agreed to take this role for a 12-month period. He will also serve as the Independent Chair of the Oversight SteerCo and will oversee the development of the alignment roadmap by Deloitte. Sue has served as PPL CEO since May 2016. She has overseen its development from a market idea to a platform allowing the placement of over 185,000 contracts in 2021. She will be responsible for the work in 2022 which will allow the delivery of NextGen 1.0.
I would like to thank Sue for her leadership of PPL which has transformed digital trading in the London Market and Joe for agreeing to delay his plans for the West Coast of Ireland to take on this role.
Bronek Masojada