Products December 16, 2010

Ascensus Enhances Retirement Platform

Ascensus, a retirement plan solutions provider for broker/dealers and RIAs, announced enhancements to its retirement platform that it says “simplify retirement plan management.”
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New capabilities focus on four primary areas: simplified pricing, expanded plan sponsor reporting, fiduciary protection, and participant education. New plans effective 1/1/11 will benefit from an improved pricing structure; Ascensus has eliminated the one-time fee for establishing or converting a plan, according to the announcement.   

The company has increased reporting capabilities with the online quarterly Planillustrator report. Planillustrator consolidates plan information into a package giving both financial advisers and plan sponsors the ability to track key plan metrics such as plan demographics, capital market review, investment lineup review, and fund fact sheets.   

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Ascensus has also broadened its education program for plan participants. Each year, Ascensus will automatically send customized communications to employees who either aren’t contributing or who aren’t contributing enough to maintain a desired retirement lifestyle. These targteted communications are personalized and proactively prompt employees to save for retirement goals with sample illustrations and helpful suggestions, the announcement said.  Ascensus mails these communications at no additional cost to the plan sponsor.  

Products December 16, 2010

Northern Trust Announces Enhanced Risk Tools

Northern Trust upgraded its suite of risk tools by integrating BarraOne to strengthen predictive risk analytics and reporting across asset classes, including derivatives.
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A press release said the integration of BarraOne’s global, multi-asset class portfolio risk service with Northern Trust’s custody, accounting, fund administration and collateral management platform provides a view of risk and compliance information for clients including investment managers, pension funds, insurance companies, family offices and other asset owners. Utilizing Northern Trust’s single, integrated risk portal, clients can apply the full spectrum of risk models and stress testing to generate predictive risk reports that can be used to adjust strategies, maintain investment policy compliance or meet regulatory requirements.  

According to the announcement, examples of predictive risk functionality for different types of users include: 

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  • Scenario-based analysis including interest rate shocks and credit risk shocks to help insurance companies comply with increased reporting required by the “Solvency II” regime, which forces insurers to set capital requirements more in line with their risks. 
  • Overnight reporting on derivatives market and counterparty risk, for Investment Operations Outsourcing clients. 
  • Enterprise-wide risk reporting for financial institutions subject to a range of regulatory measures coming into effect across the globe, including UCITS IV and Dutch Financial Assessment Framework (FTK) in Europe, Dodd-Frank in the U.S. and FSR 107 sensitivity reporting in Asia. 
“Using these state-of-the-art tools, we can forecast risk over short and long horizons, assess risk from various sources, stress-test investments and better prepare diversification analyses across multi-asset class portfolios,” said Jim Trotter, Global Head of Investment Risk & Analytical Services at Northern Trust, in the announcement.

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