ING Names Chief Marketing Officer for Retirement Services Business

ING has named X. Rick Niu chief marketing officer for ING U.S. Retirement Services, effective September 1.

According to an announcement, Niu will lead a newly formed group responsible for creating a strategic, customer-driven marketing culture across the Retirement Services organization. In this role, he will focus on developing customer- and distributor-focused research, creating a common voice for ING in Retirement Services marketing and communications vehicles, and identifying and executing cross-organizational marketing and product synergies.

In addition, the announcement said, Niu will continue to lead ING’s multicultural growth strategy and execution for the U.S. Part of his responsibilities will be to build and implement a multicultural sales and services solution for Retirement Services.

Niu is based in ING’s Windsor, Connecticut, office, and will report to Catherine H. Smith, CEO of U.S. Retirement Services.

Niu spent the past two years as chief growth officer for ING U.S. Insurance. Prior to ING, he held various leadership and management positions within the financial services industry, working in North America, Europe, and Asia.

Participant Equity Allocations Rising, but Slowly

Participants in 401(k) plans continued a cautious move into equity during August, with a total of $203 million shifted from fixed income into equities, according to the Hewitt 401(k) Index.

Hewitt said transfer activities were equity-oriented on 62% of the days during the month, and many equity asset classes realized net inflows during the month. Premixed funds, including target-risk and target-date portfolios, received approximately one-third of the net transfers, with $147 million moving into this asset class.

International funds were also at the top of the list at $80 million, as the MSCI EAFE Index returned 5.4% in August. Both small U.S. equity and large U.S. equity received small net inflows.

Stable value funds experienced the largest outflows of the month, with nearly $300 million transferring out, representing 65% of the net transfers. Since April, those funds have had outflows of nearly $1 billion, according to Hewitt. Company stock funds represented the remaining outflows ($138 million) in August.

Participants’ overall equity holdings were up again by 0.9% in August to 56.2%, which Hewitt said was due primarily to market movement and, to a smaller extent, participant transfers. While equity allocations have continued to rise since February, they remain well below previous levels, as one year ago, the average equity allocation was 62%.

Overall, transfer activity was fairly light in August, as it has been since April. On a typical day in August, net transfer activity averaged 0.04% of balances. Only one day in the month had an above-normal level of transfer activity.

August 401(k) Contribution Activity

Employee-only contributions to equity funds edged up 0.3% from 57.6% at the end of July to 57.9% at the end of August, according to the Hewitt 401(k) Index. However, similar to overall equity holdings, the amount of employee-only contributions going into equity is still significantly lower as compared to August 2008 (63%).

Stable value funds took in the most employee-only contributions at 22.01%, followed closely by premixed funds, which took in 21.78% of employee contributions. Large U.S. equity took in 16.95% of employee contributions in August.

International equity funds (8.03%) and company stock funds (7.38%) rounded out the top five investment choices for employee-only contributions.

Premixed funds received the most overall contributions in August (21.10%), followed by stable value funds (20.33%), and large U.S. equity (15.67%). Company stock funds received 13.66% of overall contributions during the month.

The August 2009 Hewitt 401(k) Index data is here.

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