“Personal data can tell you so much more beyond just providing insights into individual client behaviors. You can take these streams of data, clean them up and extract valuable insights that look across the book of business to highlight trends and challenges that are not really visible on a case-by-case basis.”
Although an SEC bulletin is directed at employees invested in HSAs, its description of useful HSA features depending on how investors use HSAs can be informative to plan sponsor clients.
Besides providing investment advice, 88% of advisers think they need to guide clients through emotional decisions.
A survey from the Society of Actuaries suggests that if retirees are able to survive financially to age 85, concerns about finances drop significantly.
They plan on using it to better understand clients’ needs.
Firms have made strides in the previous decade in terms of adopting self-service, web-based solutions—but the existing “fixed decision tree” approach is not sufficient for the next evolution in client service.
Three-fifths of non-retirees with self-directed retirement savings accounts have little or no comfort managing their investments, and only one-fifth of adults answered five financial literacy questions correctly, according to the Federal Reserve.
A new client alert published by the Wagner Law Group urges advisory firms to review and consider an update to anti-churning policies, now that FINRA and the SEC are both engaging in the matter.
Independent advisory shop founder Joe Gordon talks about winning new plan business from brokers and bank advisers who are “seriously fumbling the discussion with clients about fees and fiduciary change.”
PlanAnalytics will now utilize retirement readiness data from GuidedChoice.
An IRS compliance project found some profit sharing, including 401(k), plan sponsors did not understand when a complete discontinuance of contributions occurs.
A PwC survey finds employees are struggling with debt and supporting adult children and aging parents, but also are not investing in their retirement plans properly or using health savings accounts (HSAs) to save for retirement health care costs.
Data shared by FTSE Russell, taken from the firm’s annual smart beta survey, suggests the use of “multi-factor combination smart beta index-based investment strategies” by institutional investors has more than doubled since first measured in 2015.
Multiemployer pension plan insolvencies will obviously be harmful to the participants and beneficiaries of the plans in question, but the loss of the significant economic momentum provided by retirees spending their pension plan assets could also harm the wider economy.
A federal appeals court found a district court did not apply the correct standard of review in a case challenging the calculation of lump-sum payments from a defined benefit (DB) plan.
