BPM names 12 technology providers to its 5-Star Technology 2026 list
Benefits and Pensions Monitor has released its 5-Star Technology 2026, naming 12 technology providers across Canada’s benefits, pensions, and institutional investment space.
Entrants submitted nominations setting out the problems or pain points their offering solves for benefits and pensions professionals and how their solution differs from competitors.
The BPM team assessed each entry for detailed information, true innovation, and proven success, then benchmarked it against the rest of the field.
Submissions closed on August 7, 2026.
One conviction runs through the winners, according to the report, which is that artificial intelligence is a tool rather than a strategy and has to earn its place. At least four of the 12 describe AI built directly into their own products.
Three have operated for 30 years or more, competing alongside challengers less than a decade old.
Not one listed cybersecurity or digital health among its solutions, leaving the group concentrated in administration, analytics, automation, and member communication.
Among the 12 named, two reached that position from opposite directions.
Oliver, which has served the pension and benefits industry since 1978, retired its legacy products and rebuilt rather than retrofit AI onto systems never designed for it. Its first AI-native platform launches at the end of 2026, with a public rollout in early 2027.
Building AI into how the firm itself operates has cut the time to deliver client enhancements from about six months to about six days, Riyaad Ammantoola, senior vice president of business operations and growth, said in the report.
The firm supports roughly 250,000 members and grew its client base 33 percent year over year.
“The level of effort to get onto this new platform for a client, whether you’re new or existing, is very low,” Ammantoola told Benefits and Pensions Monitor.
Penad Pension Services Limited has built pension software for more than 43 years, long enough that some clients first installed it in the 1980s.
Its PX3000 platform runs in 14 countries and, according to the firm, administers pension and benefits programs for more than 600,000 plan members with a 100 percent client retention rate.
CEO Matthew Price applies AI only where it earns its keep, saying, “We’re putting it in where it makes sense. It’s not about AI doing the work; it’s about engineering.”
The firm declined to chase blockchain when it dominated technology headlines, and Price frames the same restraint around AI, adding, “We’re comfortable being at the leading edge, but not at the edge.”
His measure of success is simpler still. “Our best compliment is when we make it look easy enough that nobody gives it a second thought,” he said.
Both firms were also recognized in BPM’s inaugural 5-Star Technology report for 2025, making them back-to-back winners.
Oliver and Penad are two of the 12 providers recognized in BPM 5-Star Technology 2026, alongside benefitsConnect, Charli Capital, Conquest Planning, Equisoft, GoKlaim, League, Ortec, Rise People, Simply Benefits, and Snap Projections.
See the full list of BPM 5-Star Technology 2026 winners here.
