Products June 15, 2023

Investment Product and Service Launches

Aptus Capital Advisors Launches New Enhanced Yield ETF; MetLife and Lyra Health Expand Workplace Mental Health Access; Alight Expands Global Employee Benefits Solution.

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Aptus Capital Advisors Launches Large Cap Enhanced Yield ETF

Aptus Capital Advisors LLC announced the launch of the Aptus Large Cap Enhanced Yield ETF, an actively managed exchange-traded fund combining U.S. large cap equities with an equity options overlay.

“We’re proud to have assisted advisors in helping clients over the past decade and are excited to now offer a market beta strategy that provides income not reliant on certain equity styles and sectors typically associated with higher distributions,” JD Gardner, founder and managing member of Aptus Capital Advisors, said in a statement.

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The launch is the third strategy in the firm’s suite of actively managed enhanced yield ETFs. In the past year, Aptus crossed $2 billion in assets under management across its ETF lineup.

MetLife, Lyra Health Expand Access to Workforce Mental Health Solutions

MetLife and Lyra Health announced a new initiative to provide employees with access to mental health services as part of their recovery when they file a disability or absence claim.

This collaboration connects eligible employees to Lyra’s providers through a referral at the beginning of their claim. The approach will also help employers with the administrative tasks associated with disability claims and mental health resources.

“Lyra’s evidence-based mental health care and MetLife’s disability and absence management work in concert to help ensure that people can easily access high quality care when they need it most,” Sean McBride, chief revenue officer at Lyra Health, said in a statement.

Alight Expands Global Employee Benefits Solution

Alight Inc., announced the release of its global employee benefits solution, which offers administrative support and customer care for managing benefits programs.

“When you include the complexities of managing multiple vendors, languages, and time zones, it’s no surprise that global benefits remain a challenge for organizations and their employees,” Jan Pieter, vice president of business development at Alight, said in a statement. “[Our solution] enables organizations to provide their employees with benefit offerings in their language of choice and to personalize the process of tailoring their benefits.”

The solution is offered across more than 100 countries and in 32 languages. It is integrated into the Alight Worklife platform and powered by total rewards software partner Benify.

Compliance June 15, 2023

DOL Says to Expect Fiduciary Proposal in August

The new rule would seek to redefine when investment advisers for plans and IRAs are 3(21) fiduciaries.

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The Department of Labor has published its Spring Regulatory Agenda, which earmarks proposed rulemaking expected to come this year.

Among the proposed rules, which have been closely watched by the adviser community, is one which would address when a person offering employee benefit investment advice, including rolling over 401(k)s, is serving as a fiduciary and is therefore subject to stricter regulations under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.

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“This rulemaking would amend the regulatory definition of the term fiduciary set forth at 29 CFR 2510.3-21(c) to more appropriately define when persons who render investment advice for a fee to employee benefit plans and IRAs are fiduciaries within the meaning of section 3(21) of ERISA and section 4975(e)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code,” the DOL wrote in the agenda. “The amendment would take into account practices of investment advisers, and the expectations of plan officials and participants, and IRA owners who receive investment advice, as well as developments in the investment marketplace, including in the ways advisers are compensated that can subject advisers to harmful conflicts of interest.”

The DOL wrote that the Employee Benefits Security Administration will also consider prohibited transaction class exemptions and will propose amendments, or create new exemptions, to ensure consistent protection of investors in employee benefit plans and IRAs.

Maureen Thompson, the vice president of public policy at the CFP Board, said in an emailed statement that the “CFP Board supports action by the Department of Labor to propose updates to the regulatory definition of fiduciary under ERISA. The existing five-part test needs to be updated to reflect the way workers today save and invest for a financially secure retirement.”

She continued, “We are in favor of rulemaking in this area but cannot provide further comments until we review the specific details of the proposed rule.”

Several other regulatory priorities were listed in the agenda.

By the end of June, EBSA anticipates holding stakeholder meetings relating to Section 101 of the Setting Every Community up For Retirement Enhancement Act of 2019, also known as the SECURE Act. Section 101 amended ERISA “to include a pooled employer plan as a type of single employer pension benefit plan.” These meetings will explore the need for regulatory guidance in this area.

Likewise, EBSA expects to begin stakeholder meetings concerning Section 127 of the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022, which added retirement account-linked emergency savings accounts up to $2,500, sometimes called “sidecar accounts.”

June ought to be a busy month for EBSA, because it also intends to hold stakeholder meetings to implement Section 303 of SECURE 2.0, which requires the DOL to create a “lost and found” for retirement accounts. The lost and found is a database of retirement accounts and is intended to assist in matching “missing” participants with plans they have lost track of. The DOL has until the end of 2024 to implement such a database.

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