Towers Perrin and Microsoft Unveil High-Performance Computing Solution for Financial Modeling

STAMFORD, CT, May 21, 2008 – Towers Perrin, a global professional services firm, is making available a new software product for insurers, MoSes™ HPC Integration.  The software enables MoSes version 6.2 financial modeling software to work with the Microsoft^® Windows Computer Cluster Server (WCCS) 2003 high-performance computing (HPC) system.

This combination will make possible the rapid completion of MoSes financial projections, thus giving decision makers analytical results faster for better decision making. The software also supports 64-bit processing, providing increased memory capacity, allowing financial projections to be run with much larger volumes of data and many more scenarios.

“Market forces are pressuring insurers to perform more sophisticated financial analysis in less time,” says Mike Oxley, managing director of software solutions for Towers Perrin.  “This high-performance computing solution will help our customers gain increased value from their existing MoSes applications and Microsoft Windows software administration skills while introducing robust technology to support mission-critical applications well into the future.”

“We are pleased to work with Towers Perrin to provide Microsoft high-performance computing solutions to MoSes customers,” says Gordon Ejsmond-Frey, director of Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) insurance for Microsoft.  “In today’s challenging economic climate, there will be an increased use of analytics among insurers as the market hardens.  HPC-enabled financial modeling solutions such as MoSes can help companies perform the computations necessary to make well-informed business decisions and keep abreast of change.”

The Microsoft WCCS is designed to be easy to deploy and operate.  By splitting large computing jobs into several smaller jobs – and running them in parallel over a networked cluster of computers – these tasks can be finished in less time.  WCCS automatically handles failed jobs without user intervention.  By leveraging Windows software administration skills, it is as easy, secure and stable as a single system.

MoSes provides comprehensive actuarial analysis and reporting for typical life insurance and annuity products marketed around the world.  The application can be used for a variety of tasks, including product development, pricing, valuation, cash flow testing, liability and asset/liability modeling.  MoSes applications are fully transparent, allowing insurers to see the actual code used to make the calculations and, in turn, to trace the calculations and ease auditability.

About Towers Perrin

Towers Perrin is a global professional services firm that helps organizations improve performance through effective people, risk and financial management.  The firm provides innovative solutions in the areas of human capital strategy, program design and management, and in the areas of risk and capital management, reinsurance intermediary services and actuarial consulting.  Towers Perrin has offices and alliance partners in the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia, Latin America, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.  More information is available at www.towersperrin.com.