Products May 15, 2019

John Hancock Introduces Participant Online Learning Center

My Learning Center offers a financial wellness assessment, retirement calculators, webinar recordings, podcasts, videos, articles and other resources previously available in different areas of the participant website, all in one location.

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John Hancock’s retirement business is upgrading its set of participant financial education content and tools via a new online learning management system, My Learning Center.

The resource tracks and rewards interaction and serves up key content on the platform’s homepage to help retirement plan participants improve their financial literacy, assess their personal finances, and work toward retirement readiness at all life stages. My Learning Center offers a financial wellness assessment, retirement calculators, webinar recordings, podcasts, videos, articles and other resources previously available in different areas of the participant website, all in one location. It also has expanded financial wellness resources in Spanish.

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As participants interact with the resource, they earn “badges” through a new gamification and rewards system. Interactions with My Learning Center prompt and advance a personalized curriculum for the participant. Progression through the curriculum is curated and the experience is paired with plan level data to create key recommended actions to drive engagement and encourage financial fitness and retirement readiness for the individual.

“To enable people to save for retirement, we first need to help them understand the obstacles that cause them not to save then provide them with the information they need so they feel confident about taking the actions that will help them live well today and tomorrow,” says Patrick Murphy, CEO, John Hancock, US Retirement. “Our new learning platform goes beyond investment and benefits planning to identify specific financial stressors and then builds a learning curriculum customized to the individual, designed to help boost knowledge of financial topics and encourage action through intelligent nudges.”

More information about John Hancock retirement products and services is here.
The Markets May 15, 2019

Fee Considerations Drive Mutual Fund Purchases

Investors also look at historical performance and performance compared to an index, ICI found.

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In 2018, 90% of mutual fund-owning households considered fees and expenses when selecting a mutual fund, according to research by the Investment Company Institute (ICI) in a new report, “What U.S. Households Consider When They Select Mutual Funds, 2018.” Nearly 40% said this information was “very important.”

More than nine in 10 mutual fund-owning households considered historical performance when making a purchase. Just over half said this information was “very important.” Additionally, 88% consider a fund’s performance compared to an index, with 36% saying this information was “very important.”

“Mutual fund investors are typically saving for retirement, education or other long-term financial goals,” says Sarah Holden, senior director of retirement and investor research at the ICI. “So, it’s no surprise that households carefully consider many factors when choosing mutual funds, making informed choices to save and invest to meet their financial goals.”

Additionally, 90% of mutual fund-owning households considered a fund’s investment objective when making a selection, with 38% saying this information was “very important.” Ninety-one percent consider a fund’s risk level of investments, with 37% saying this information was “very important.” Seventy-five percent look at a fund’s rating from a rating service, with 20% saying this information was “very important.”

ICI also looked at the channels through which investors own mutual funds. The most common, 80%, was through employer-sponsored retirement plans, but another 63% own mutual funds through outside resources.  Twenty-seven percent purchased these outside funds through a broker, 24% through a financial planner, 19% through a bank or savings institution, 10% through an insurance agent and 7% through an accountant. On the other hand, 33% make the purchase themselves directly, either from the mutual fund company or a discount broker.

The most common type of fund owned was equity funds (88%), followed by money market funds (57%), bond funds (44%) and balanced funds (36%). Total U.S. household mutual fund assets in 2018 were $15.8 trillion, with 41% of these assets in domestic equity funds, 24% in bond funds, 14% in world equity funds, 12% in money market funds and 9% in balanced funds.

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