DTCC Hires Former Pru Exec To Support Increased Insurance Focus

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. (DTCC, New York) has named former Prudential Select Brokerage executive John C. Ziambras vice president of sales, insurance services group, signaling the DTCC's increased focus on the insurance, broker/dealer and banking communities.

"Coming from a manufacturer" of insurance products, "it is fairly evident to me that there are too many manufacturers making too many products," Ziambras says. "Every insurance company has its own infrastructure, but there isn't much knowledge about putting a product into a format that the broker/dealers will prefer to use. DTCC has an advantage because we can help the insurance companies target the broker/dealers in a successful method.

"DTCC has done very well in streamlining the distribution of mutual funds," Ziambras adds. "We want to provide the linkage between the insurance companies and the distributors to streamline the distribution of insurance products."

"When most insurance carriers approach broker/dealers, they are looking to make one-off connections" for distributing insurance products, Ziambras says. "But broker/dealers have to work with more than one company because each insurance company does not have all of the products that the client may need."

Ziambras, who previously also managed the insurance consulting practice at KPMG Peat Marwick LLP and spent time at Northwestern Mutual Life and New York Life as a financial and insurance planner and sales manager, will report to J. Randall Grespin, managing director of distribution services, DTCC.

According to Ziambras, he was attracted to DTCC because of its leadership position with in the financial services and broker/dealer community. "I have been very successful doing other things before and, like everyone else, I felt like I wanted to do something different," he says. "Also, this is a ground-floor opportunity and I hope that I will be able to help DTCC build a legacy in insurance."

DTCC, a financial services post-trade infrastructure organization that offers insurance services primarily to broker/dealers through its Insurance Processing Service (IPS), also recently partnered with Pivot/InfoOne (Columbus, OH) to launch an online annuity sales solution that will allow broker/dealers and banks to complete online annuity applications and electronically route them to insurance carriers. DTCC also is partnering recently with ACORD (Pearl River, NY) to work toward the development of a set of common data standards that the annuity and life insurance industries can use for exchanging products and sale information.

Greg MacSweeney is editorial director of InformationWeek Financial Services, whose brands include Wall Street & Technology, Bank Systems & Technology, Advanced Trading, and Insurance & Technology. View Full Bio