Blue Frog To Help Beacon With XML Standards

By Staff Writer

April 03, 2003 at 07:00 PM

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NU Online News Service, April 3, 2003, 12:29 p.m. EST – Beacon Research Inc., Evanston, Ill., has picked Blue Frog Solutions Inc., Pompano Beach, Fla., to help it pull data into AnnuityNexus.com, its fixed annuity product information system.

Insurers will be able to use Blue Frog software or other software to put information about their fixed annuities in the new Product Profile for Annuities XML format, then send the information to Beacon through the Insurance Services Repository for annuity and life product information, a service of the Depository Trust & Clearing Corp., New York.

Beacon will use systems from Blue Frog to receive and manage the PPfA standard data.

XML is a set of rules for developing systems that can automatically label the pieces of information in an electronic data file.

The Association for Cooperative Research and Development, Pearl River, N.Y., has worked with the National Association for Variable Annuities, Reston, Va., to come up with PPfA, a format that insurers and others can use to exchange information about annuities without replacing their existing computers and databases.

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