Products February 6, 2025

Product and Service Launches – 2/6/25

PensionBee and SS&C offer safe harbor IRA; Future Capital and Axos Clearing facilitate 401(k) management for wealth clients; East Coast Asset Management introduces strategy to U.S. market, and more.

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PensionBee and SS&C to Offer Safe Harbor IRA for Employers

Online retirement provider PensionBee, in partnership with SS&C Technologies and its Automated Rollover Program (ARP), introduced a Safe Harbor IRA for employers and former employees.

PensionBee says its Safe Harbor IRA includes: an intuitive product offering, with a digital platform across the web and a mobile app; a range of investment options including State Street’s SPDR T-Bill ETF (BIL), a curated range of Model Portfolios, and a target-date portfolio; a competitive fee structure; personalized customer service; and educational resources.

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Future Capital and Axos Clearing Facilitate 401(k) Management for Wealth Clients

Future Capital and Axos Clearing announced an integration that will give financial advisers the ability to manage their clients’ workplace retirement accounts.

This partnership integrates Future Capital’s Core and Construct platforms into the Axos Professional Workstation, so that advisers can introduce their wealth clients to Future Capital’s discretionary management service for held-away retirement assets and can exercise full discretionary authority over these retirement accounts.

The integration enables Axos Clearing client firms to: manage clients held-away 401(k) assets; build custom allocations with comple portfolio customization; determine their own fee structure; introduce these accounts to Future Capital for management; identify rollover opportunities; and access comprehensive household financial data.

East Coast Asset Management Introduces Strategy to U.S. Market

Alternative credit specialist East Coast Asset Management, a long-short fixed income manager specializing in North American investment-grade credit, entered the U.S. market and introduced its strategy to investment consultants, institutional investors, registered investment advisers, family offices and high-net-worth individuals in the United States.

Located in the Cayman Islands, East Coast Asset Management offers an actively managed fixed income credit strategy that seeks both to protect investor capital and maximize risk-adjusted returns. The firm aims to generate returns through three primary trading methodologies: core credit portfolio, relative value opportunities, and active trading.

The asset manager has approximately $1.8 billion in assets and has served institutional and individual investors in Canada for 15 years. To support this expansion, East Coast Asset Management has formed a strategic partnership with Boston-based Eolas Capital to assist with market strategy and serve as its distribution team.

Alight Launches First of Two 2025 Releases of Alight Worklife Platform

Alight, Inc., announced the first major release of Alight Worklife for 2025, with close to 50 new features across the company’s core health, wealth, wellbeing, navigation, and absence management solutions. In this release, Alight brings a new integration with Microsoft Teams as well as AI-powered capabilities, including a new employer reporting and analytics platform that unifies reporting across the company’s benefits solutions, as well as expanded AI automation in claims processing.

An upgraded user experience includes features to streamline processes, improve access and provide deeper insights for both employers and employees, such as enhanced shared access allowing spouses and partners additional access and an extensive programs library with more than 188 integrated vendors, with AI-powered personalization that engages employees with the right program at the right time.

The latest release of Alight Worklife also includes Alight IRA, a solution to make it easier to rollover plan assets. It offers both Traditional and Roth options, rollover capabilities from prior 401(k)s, a range of investment options and support throughout the process.

This release also includes updates in response to the SECURE 2.0 Act—such as a summary of financial health status and personalized action plans— as well as a new bereavement documentation process.

To support health and absence management, Alight Worklife further integrates Alight’s Leave Management and Benefits Administration solutions. Features include: New Life Event Verification solution; multi-lingual capabilities; user provider search experience; leave claim to-dos; and API integration between LeavePro and Workday.

Compliance February 6, 2025

Will Trump DOL Move Away From Biden Independent Contractor Classification Rule?

Oral arguments in Frisard’s Transportation LLC v. United States DOL were scheduled to begin early this month, but under the new administration, the Department of Labor secured a postponement.

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It is likely that the independent contractor rule finalized last year under the administration of former President Joe Biden will see changes in Department of Labor support and implementation under the new administration, according to Katelynn M. Williams, senior counsel at Foley & Lardner LLP.

Referring to the ongoing rulemaking about how to determine whether workers are “employees” covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act or “independent contractors” exempt from FLSA coverage as a “tennis match,” Williams noted that the change in presidential parties means another round of changes in approach.

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The DOL under Biden released its final rule regarding employee or independent contractor classification under the Fair Labor Standards Act in January 2024 amid continued pushback from the financial industry actors, who often prefer independent status for advisers.

The rule modified the definition of independent contractor in a manner expected to make it easier for workers to be classified as employees, rather than freelancers. It uses a six-factor test to determine classification. Employees are entitled under federal law to a range of benefits to which independent contractors are not entitled, such as overtime pay, a minimum wage and workplace safety requirements enforced by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

There are five lawsuits challenging this 2024 Independent Contractor Rule, according to Williams. Oral arguments in Frisard’s Transportation LLC v. United States DOL in a federal appeals court were scheduled to begin early this month. However, under the administration of President Donald Trump, the DOL secured a postponement and has until March 25 to tell the court how it plans to proceed.

“We can expect that the DOL will drop its defense of the 2024 Independent Contractor Rule, which had rescinded the Trump 1.0-era test for independent contractor classification under the FLSA,” Williams wrote. Instead, she suggested that the DOL may restore the 2021 Independent Contractor Rule or leave it to the courts to judge classification issues without formal guidance from the department.

If, in fact, the “Trump 1.0” independent contractor rule from 2021 is restored, Williams wrote, it uses a five-factor test to determine worker classification, including two “core” factors: the nature and degree of the worker’s control over the work and the worker’s opportunity for profit or loss. While that rule was seen as simpler and more employer friendly, Williams “it was no free pass, either,” Williams wrote. “It made clear that actual practice dictates whether a worker is properly classified, not contractual labels or the parties’ preference.”

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