  We propose two variants of the Smith-Wilson method for practical application
in the insurance industry. Our first variant relaxes the Smith-Wilson energy
and can be used to incorporate less reliable market data with a certain weight
rather than disregarding it completely. This is particularly useful for
deriving yield curves in the IFRS 17 accounting regime, where there is a
mandate to incorporate all available market data.
  A second variant incorporates the requirement to reach the ultimate forward
rate at a prescribed term into the problem formulation. This provides a natural
way to fulfil the Solvency II convergence requirement and is more elegant than
the current methodology adapting the term-scale parameter to control
convergence.
