Want the latest retirement plan adviser news and insights? Sign up for PLANADVISER newsletters.
Products September 10, 2007
Fidelity, Sungard Introduce New Trading and Custody Platform Services
Fidelity Investments and SunGard have announced the addition of new services to their integrated trading and custody platform for trust institutions and third party administrators (TPAs).
Reported by Rebecca Moore
The new services include a directed trustee services program, a payment and reporting program for brokers who support retirement plans, and an online revenue management tool.
The Directed Trustee Services program helps TPAs that custody assets with Fidelity to streamline management of qualified retirement plans by providing access to the professional trustee services offered by Fidelity Personal Trust Company, the announcement said. Through Directed Trustee Services, plan sponsors can access fiduciary services to help reduce risk, audit expenses, and administrative costs.
Paying Agent Services provide administrative support of contribution, distribution and loan processing, status reports on distributions, and IRS Form 1099-R tax reporting. Paying Agent Services can be bundled with Directed Trustee Services or are available on an unbundled basis, according to the announcement.
The Fidelity Institutional Broker Network is a program for broker/dealers and their representatives who service retirement plans through a TPA relationship. For broker/dealer firms, the service can act as a compliance resource and also provides automated payments of asset-based fees to broker/dealers through the NSCC Commission Settlement Service. The service also provides reporting to fund companies of broker/dealer representative relationships to the retirement plans and a Web application designed exclusively for broker/dealers.
The online revenue management tool helps TPAs monitor commission payments from multiple fund companies across the multiple retirement plans they service. Data is refreshed daily and the system confirms payments by account, position, and payment instructions and supports information searches by a number of criteria, including plan name/account number, security, broker/dealer, and payment type.
Clients can print a consolidated report directly from the revenue management system or export the information to a spreadsheet.
The Fidelity/SunGard integrated trading and custody platform utilizes the capabilities of the SunGard Transaction Network (STN).
More information can be found at www.sungard.com.