CIS has partnered with Quai Digital to support a new generation of pension propositions — combining innovative digital experiences with resilient, institutional-grade investment and operational infrastructure.
Read our latest case study.
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Introduction
At CIS, helping our clients secure the best possible outcomes for savers is at the heart of what we do. One of the most meaningful ways we can do that is by supporting organisations who bring fresh thinking to pension saving — especially when they’re tackling real, everyday challenges like affordability, engagement, and lost pensions.
That’s why our partnership with Quai Digital is so important. Together, we’re creating a modern, end-to-end ecosystem where digital innovators can build great customer experiences, safe in the knowledge that they’re backed by reliable investment operations, strong governance, and systems designed to scale.
Early propositions using this model are showing how the combination of digital innovation and robust investment infrastructure can transform pension saving to better meet the needs of modern-day savers.
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Understanding the Challenges Savers Face
Today’s pension savers are dealing with a mix of long-standing and emerging issues:
Finding pensions can be a treasure hunt
With frequent job changes, it’s easy for savers to lose track of old pension pots — and once they’re out of sight, they’re often out of mind.
Pensions feel complicated — and that leads to disengagement
Many people lack the confidence to manage their pensions, and traditional systems aren’t always designed with everyday users in mind.
Affordability is a growing concern
With cost-of-living pressures, lots of people struggle to make regular contributions, even though they want to do the right thing for their future.
Expectations around digital experience are rising
People want pension services that are simple, intuitive, and built around their lifestyles — just like the apps they use every day.
Across the market, innovators are stepping forward with fresh ideas to tackle these challenges through modern, app-based digital journeys. But even the best digital experiences can’t succeed on their own — they need strong, dependable foundations behind them.
To operate responsibly and at scale, these propositions rely on robust governance, proven investment infrastructure, and the operational resilience to give savers confidence that their money is being managed securely.
That’s where the partnership between CIS and Quai Digital becomes essential.
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The Partnership: CIS and Quai Digital Working Together
Our partnership with Quai Digital brings together two complementary strengths — CIS provides institutional-grade investment capabilities, while Quai brings wrapper provision, administration, governance, and modern digital enablement.
CIS
Our platform provides the building blocks for each investment proposition. By leveraging our key strategic fund manager relationships, we provide flexibility and choice at institutional rates. We utilise straight-through processing to ensure every trade instruction flows through our systems quickly and accurately, underpinned by strong operational oversight to give underlying clients the assurance that their proposition rests on stable foundations. We also provide market leading, tailored performance and regulatory reporting to support investment oversight and digital engagement.
Quai Digital
Quai provides the operational and regulatory engine that powers each investment proposition it supports. They own and operate the pension wrapper, manage administration and day-to-day servicing, and deliver the governance required to keep each scheme safe and compliant. Underpinned by modern API infrastructure, Quai makes it straightforward for digital innovators to build simple, intuitive experiences without complexity getting in the way. By coordinating the moving parts behind the scenes, they make it easy for new propositions to plug in, build quickly and operate responsibly. With decades of pensions expertise, £3.3bn in assets under administration and more than 480,000 accounts on platform, Quai brings the scale, experience and operational rigour clients can rely on.
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Innovation in Action: What the Partnership Enables
The CIS and Quai Digital partnership is already enabling a new wave of pension propositions that tackle real-world challenges with modern, user-centred design — all built on solid investment and operational foundations.
Across the early propositions now coming through our ecosystem, we’re already seeing how this model enables meaningful new solutions for savers:
Reconnecting people with their pensions
New digital journeys are being designed to locate and consolidate pension pots accumulated over multiple jobs. By combining strong governance, modern APIs, and consistently accurate operational processing, these solutions create smoother, clearer journeys that make it easier to keep track of multiple pension pots.
Making saving feel more achievable
Other propositions are focused on affordability — helping people save little and often through features like micro‑payments, automated nudges, and cashback on everyday spending. Leveraging the partnership’s combined strengths, they turn small, everyday actions into meaningful pension contributions.
Simplifying complex decisions through intuitive design
Many new entrants are rethinking how pension choices are presented, offering simplified journeys supported by transparent investment options and clear communications. Savers benefit from greater clarity without compromising on regulatory or operational rigour.
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Why the CIS / Quai Partnership Works
As these early solutions demonstrate, modern pension propositions thrive when they can pair innovative digital experiences with strong, dependable foundations.
The CIS/Quai model provides exactly that — combining resilient investment infrastructure, robust servicing, and scalable digital enablement in a way that removes much of the complexity that typically slows innovation. This allows digital innovators to focus on designing great experiences, confident that the underlying operations, governance, and investment processes are managed by trusted experts.
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“Building pension propositions that actually work for modern savers requires more than a great app. When you combine CIS's institutional investment capabilities with Quai's operational and regulatory infrastructure, digital innovators can focus on what they do best — and savers get propositions that are both innovative and properly built. That's the model we're proving out through this partnership.”
Tony Webb, CEO, Quai Digital
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“Our focus is always on helping our clients deliver the best possible outcomes for savers. Partnering with Quai means we can combine dependable investment operations with flexible digital delivery — this creates a foundation where new ideas can grow safely and sustainably. By bringing together our strengths, we enable innovators to build modern, intuitive savings journeys on top of a framework that is robust, well‑governed and built for scale.”
Jess Williams, Head of Corporate Investment Services, CIS (Part of Standard Life)
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Conclusion
At CIS, we believe that innovation should always serve a purpose — and partnering with Quai Digital allows us to support new propositions that genuinely help people. Whether it’s finding lost pensions or making saving more affordable, we’re proud to provide the stable, institutional-grade investment infrastructure that brings these ideas to life.
The examples emerging today are just the beginning. As more innovators enter the space, our partnership with Quai offers a proven, responsible and forward‑looking model for delivering modern pension solutions that make a real difference to people’s lives.
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