Hot off the Presses

Participant and Sponsor Tools

Transamerica Retirement Solutions has unveiled its Retirement Plan Exchange to help small businesses offer workplace retirement plans to more employees, as well as to help employees save for retirement at higher rates. Features include auto-enrollment, auto-increases and the availability of a Roth provision.

Meeder Investment Management debuted a 3(38) fiduciary service that provides guidance on investment policy statements (IPSs), initial core lineups of funds and portfolios, ongoing monitoring and reporting, and active management of diversified model portfolios. The service is available on various retirement platforms based on plan size.

Morningstar has enhanced its Morningstar Retirement Manager, the advice and managed account service for defined contribution (DC) participants. Upgrades include Income Secure, which can evaluate all holdings across taxable and tax-deferred accounts as well as generate an individualized retirement income drawdown plan.

Newkirk has introduced the Roth Conversion Analyzer, which includes an interactive tutorial that summarizes in-plan Roth conversion options. A conversion analyzer tool provides an estimated balance at retirement for three conversion scenarios: no Roth conversion, partial conversion to a Roth using existing savings and complete conversion to a Roth.

A diagnostic tool from Plan Sponsor Advisors, TDAnalyzer, can help determine the best target-date strategies for a plan, based on employee demographics such as age, salary, current account balance and deferral rate. Target-date options are evaluated by such criteria as whether the glide path is a good fit for the plan, whether the target-date solution will achieve its income replacement objective and whether the underlying managers have added value to the asset allocation.

Fidelity Investments has debuted its NetBenefits smartphone application (app), which lets users view plan summaries and vesting balances via mobile phones. Participants can assess Fidelity investing accounts, such as retirement and non-retirement brokerage accounts, health savings accounts (HSAs), 529 college savings plans, insurance plans and other savings accounts.

ADP has created Plan Health Review to help plan sponsors measure a retirement plan’s success. The tool generates solutions for participants to achieve financial security in retirement, identifies the employee groups that need help planning and scores participation rates, participant deferrals, participant investment usage and participant usage of loans and withdrawals.

Adviser Tools

The Online 401(k) has released Starter(k), a payroll deduction individual retirement account (IRA) designed for small businesses of 100 or fewer employees. The IRA offers a Web-based platform and automates participant savings.

Russell Investments’ Asset Class Dashboard was developed to help advisers establish context and perspective with clients when evaluating returns. A simple visual representation of key data contrasts current 12-month performance with historical and typical returns to help an adviser manage client expectations.

Wealth Management Systems Inc. has created the IRA Selection Tool to simplify deciding between traditional and Roth individual retirement accounts (IRAs). The tool considers age, tax filing status and estimated income. It can be used via smartphones by IRA providers who want to engage plan participants and help them evaluate IRA and rollover options.

Matrix Financial Solutions has teamed with the American Society of Pension Professionals and Actuaries (ASPPA), SCS Consulting Inc. and the National Association of Plan Advisors (NAPA) to offer webinars, in-person training and original content distribution to financial advisers to help maintain and expand their retirement plan practice. Most webinars qualify for continuing education credits.

OppenheimerFunds has enhanced its Scholar’s Edge 529 Plan with a wider array of investment options that cover the major asset classes and alternative investments, as well as a micro site that helps advisers get clients started on the Scholar’s Edge platform and guides them through investment allocation.

Cetera Financial Group has debuted an unbundled, open-architecture solution for advisers who serve as 3(21) fiduciaries to offer customized advice to plan sponsors. The platform utilizes Matrix Financial Solutions for custodial services, research and fund screening, and offers a range of investment vehicles such as exchange-traded products and mutual funds.

Registered investment advisers (RIAs) can navigate the myriad legal requirements of preparing compliant advertisements with an advertising guide from Dechert LLP and RR Donnelley. The publication addresses Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) rules, advertising past performance, and global investment performance standards. 

Adviser Tools (cont.)

The “Prudent Practices and Prudent Practices for Investment Fiduciaries” handbook series has been updated by fi360 to keep fiduciary guidance for investment professionals current. The updates include recent Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) rules from the Department of Labor (DOL) and increased due diligence and review of custodial arrangements in light of Bernard Madoff’s and other Ponzi schemes.

A partnership between Fiserv and Financial Market Data Services has produced a solution for fully outsourced, end-to-end securities class-action claims processing. The solution focuses on managed accounts—a high-growth segment—and can be extended to support all class actions for a firm, bringing efficiencies to what can be an inefficient, fragmented and manual process.

The Paychex (k)Index from Paychex Inc. can cross-reference investments on the firm’s 401(k) recordkeeping platform with a number of broker/dealer (B/D) rosters. Advisers can filter by asset category and share class, and can elect for fiduciary protection under Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) Section 3(38). The tool is accessible on any mobile device.

Investments

Shield Level Selector, a single premium deferred annuity, was created by MetLife to address protection from loss and help with growth opportunities. Investors can customize levels of protection, maintain growth opportunities and flexibly allocate purchase payments.

Wells Fargo Retirement has added an in-plan guaranteed-income solution to the retirement plan investments available for plan sponsors. IncomeFlex features include guaranteed lifetime income, sustained potential for growth and downside protection for retirement income.

Goldman Sachs Asset Management (GSAM) has launched the Goldman Sachs Multi-Manager Alternatives Fund to bring alternative investments to a wider investor base. The fund is expected to invest in a wide range of strategies and is offered in Institutional, Class R and Class IR shares.

Barclays and MSCI Inc. have partnered on the Barclays MSCI ESG Fixed-Income Indices family of environmental, social and governance (ESG) fixed-income indices, which, the companies say, contain the first fixed-income benchmark indices based on ESG factors.