Products March 7, 2012

The Principal Selects Social Media Monitoring Platform

The Principal Financial Group chose Actiance’s platform, called Socialite, to help meet regulatory requirements that allow the firm’s financial professionals to use social media for business purposes.
Reported by

Socialite monitors representatives’ social media conversations with clients and prospects, including traffic originating from a multitude of devices such as PCs, Macs, tablets and smartphones. It provides control for social networking sites, including the ability to manage access and content shared across 200 features on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. The solution can handle the needs of home office and field-based representatives.

“The wide adoption of social media, in conjunction with FINRA regulations and other guidance from regulators, has sparked a variety of changes for The Principal and the financial services industry as a whole,” said Chad Oppedal, assistant director of Compliance for The Principal Financial Group. “The number of social media options available, the geographic dispersal of our reps, and the fact that each individual can use a variety of hardware and communication tools to interact with clients meant that before allowing our reps to use social media, we needed a technology solution to handle our complex regulatory needs while effectively enabling our reps to take advantage of new ways to connect with their clients.”

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The Markets March 6, 2012

Milliman Sees Pension Funding Improvement

In February, corporate pension plans experienced a $20 billion improvement in funding, according to Milliman's Pension Funding Index.  
Reported by

This improvement was due to a $24 billion improvement in asset value that offset a $4 billion increase in the pension benefit obligation (PBO). The asset-driven improvement continues the modest rally that has so far characterized 2012, the company said.

“Slowly but steadily, these 100 pensions are chipping away at the pension funding deficit,” said John Ehrhardt, co-author of the Milliman Pension Funding Study. “Interest rates are again at an all-time low, driving pension liabilities to an all-time high, but so far this year we’ve seen enough positive asset performance to move funding status in the right direction.”

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In February, the projected benefit obligation (PBO) for these pensions reached $1.689 trillion as interest rates slid back to 4.25%, a level last seen at the end of 2011. The overall asset value for these 100 pensions grew from $1.252 trillion to $1.276 trillion.

Looking forward, Milliman estimates if these 100 pensions were to achieve an 8.0% median asset return and if the current discount rate of 4.25% were to be maintained throughout 2012 and 2013, these pensions would narrow the pension funding gap from 75.5% to 79.9% by the end of 2012 and to 85.4% by the end of 2013.

To view the complete study, visit http://ow.ly/4xFIt.  

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