Hot Off the Presses

 Participant and Plan Sponsor Tools 

A new mobile application for the Apple iPhone and iPad by Diversified allows retirement plan participants to view multiple aspects of their retirement portfolios. These include: account balance; retirement outlook; statement and transaction history; personal rate of return; and estimated retirement income and savings goals.

Natixis Global Asset Management (NGAM) created the Durable Portfolio Construction platform. This NGAM platform is intended to help individual investors, financial advisers and institutional investors address growing concerns about risk and market volatility in global markets. The platform focuses on portfolio construction and analytics to help investors manage volatility.

New York Life Retirement Plan Services unveiled a website for retirement plan sponsors and advisers. The site, www.newyorkliferetirementplans.com, offers an enhanced platform, including thought leadership, corporate­ background, and product and capability information.  

RPG Consultants and IRON Financial formed an alliance to enable retirement plan sponsor use of IRON Financial’s technology and portfolio management capabilities. IRON Financial will provide section 3(38) Investment Fiduciary Services, using RPG Consultants’ open architecture recordkeeping platform, as well as RPG’s plan consulting, actuarial and administration services for all types of plans.

Prudential Financial released a white paper to address the challenges of achieving retirement objectives. “Achieving Retirement Security in an Age of Uncertainty: Three Important Steps” outlines specific actions people can take to attain greater retirement security.

“RENEW Your Commitment to Retirement Planning” is an online program rolled out by Transamerica Retirement Services that helps retirement plan participants re-energize their commitment to saving for retirement. The program is a five-step guide to help plan participants commit to goals and keep their strategy on track over the long term.

Lincoln Financial Group’s Retirement Plan Services business enhanced its LifeSpan customized model asset allocation program. Lincoln now offers plan sponsors the option to engage with Ibbotson Associates, a registered investment adviser (RIA) and wholly owned subsidiary of Morningstar Inc., to provide discretionarily managed custom model portfolios with Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) 3(38) coverage.

Human resources consultant Findley Davies launched the Retirement Focus mobile application for iPhones and Android smartphones. The app allows client plan sponsors and their plan participants to get real-time information about their retirement accounts. It provides access to investment information, up-to-date balances and transactions.

Mercer released an e-book titled “What’s Working Around the World.” The e-book is a snapshot of employee engagement research conducted in 17 markets worldwide. It provides a look into the minds of today’s employees, featuring insights and trends on benefits, retirement, pay, career, company, job and life. It can be read or downloaded at www.mercer.com/wwaw.

Transamerica Retirement Services launched an asset-allocation service to make saving for retirement easier for participants in company-sponsored retirement plans. PortfolioXpress uses the plan’s core investment lineup to build a series of model portfolios along a glide path based on the participant’s retirement date.

The Centre for Fiduciary Excellence (CEFEX) expanded its assessment guidelines for retirement plan sponsors, advisers and recordkeepers. CEFEX said the enhanced certification criteria will ensure service providers properly disclose plan information, administrative expenses and investment information to plan sponsors and that, in turn, plan sponsors disclose these fees to participants. The updated checklists are now part of CEFEX’s assessment methodology for plan sponsors and their service providers.

Adviser Tools 

Principal Financial Group updated its defined benefit (DB) termination program, which provides resources, education and actuarial consulting to help financial professionals and their clients walk through the key steps for shutting down a plan. The Principal also released a two-part white paper, “Best Practices for Executing a Termination Strategy: Winding Down Your Hard-Frozen Defined Benefit Plan.”

The SPARK Institute and the Investment Company Institute released a sample investment-term glossary for retirement plan participants. The new version of the “Sample Glossary of Investment-Related Terms for Disclosures to Retirement Plan Participants” contains revisions for the term “cash equivalent” and the definition of “market capitalization or market cap.”   

Expanding its mobile tools, TD Ameritrade Institutional now gives independent registered investment advisers (RIAs) access to its Veo platform. Advisers logging in to the Veo platform via smartphones can view account balances, transactions and client profile information. TD Ameritrade has also enhanced its Veo mobile application for the iPad to allow trading capabilities, consolidated and single client account views, and live streaming of CNBC.

Brinker Capital created an application to help advisers determine how much of each client’s portfolio should be allocated to absolute return investments. Advisers are asked to answer eight questions based on their client’s investing time horizon, risk tolerance and future purchasing power. The recommended breakdown between absolute return and relative return appears on the user’s device or computer.

Vestmark unveiled compliance solutions for fee-based accounts within its unified wealth management platform, VestmarkONE. The platform’s scalable compliance engine evaluates compliance rules and client restrictions in real time, pre-trade, to avoid costly errors and unintended trades. VestmarkONE includes detailed audit trails to confirm adherence to compliance policies and rules, and ongoing monitoring of compliance rules on a post-trade basis.

Cambridge Investment Research Inc. selected Fiduciary Benchmarks to meet the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) 408(b)(2) disclosure regulations. The firm’s service and technology solution will help advisers disclose fees, services and fiduciary status to comply with the new regulations.

Genworth Financial Wealth Management introduced a program with lending opportunities for advisers seeking practice acquisitions. Genworth is working with The Bancorp Bank to provide access to financing for Genworth advisers committed to working with the platform and who want assistance with acquiring another advisory business.

An April white paper from Arnerich Massena explores the potential risks and advantages of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and reviews the history and construction of the funds, investigating the claims of tax efficiency, liquidity, transparency and cost. 

Partnering with fi360, Security Benefit Corporation is giving plan advisers and sponsors no-cost access to fi360’s Fiduciary Score analysis of Security Benefit’s recently launched SecurePoint Retirement 401(k) product. 

Pacific Life introduced an online tool to help advisers engage clients in a conversation about building sustainable lifetime retirement income. The adviser enters information about a client’s age, current retirement savings and desired retirement income. The tool then generates a numerical measure called a retirement sustainability quotient (RSQ). The higher this number, the more likely the client’s current portfolio can generate the desired level of retirement income stream over his lifetime.

An Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) 3(38) certification program for advisers was initiated by Rosenbaum Law Firm and DALBAR Inc. The Ultimate 3(38) Solution offers plan advisers a diagnostic tool to identify the hurdles and steps necessary to adopt an effective 3(38) fiduciary protocol. The adviser’s answers to the Ultimate 3(38) Questionnaire produce a plan that identifies whether a fiduciary role is feasible and, if so, makes specific recommendations.

Michigan-based law firm Warner Norcross & Judd LLP attorneys and securities compliance consultants started a blog for broker/dealers, advisers and private investment funds to provide compliance tips, legal summaries and information about best practices.

Primerica began an on-demand, online training program developed by Integrated Retirement. The courses allow a greater number of Primerica registered advisers to master the technical concepts needed to serve individual retirement account (IRA) and business retirement-plan clients.

J.P. Morgan Asset Management’s 2012 “Guide to Retirement” covers retirement topics, in sections about life expectancy probabilities, older Americans in the workplace, saving, spending and investing.

Genworth has compiled data from its ninth annual Cost of Care Survey in a mobile application that gives advisers access to national and local long-term care costs throughout the country. Advisers and their clients can use the app to find location-specific cost information by state and type of care setting for 437 cities and regions in all 50 states. It is available at the iTunes store, free of charge.

Investments  

CPI Qualified Plan Consultants Inc. added collective investment funds and exchange-traded funds (ETF) advised by First Trust Advisors LP to its retirement plan platform.

Prudential Annuities introduced two asset-allocation options for its investment lineup, giving the firm 19 portfolios in asset allocation. The AST New Discovery Asset Allocation Portfolio and the AST Schroders Global Tactical portfolio span four strategies and can be used as standalone options or combined.

INTECH Investment Management LLC (INTECH) unveiled the INTECH Global High Dividend Core strategy, designed for institutional investors seeking capital appreciation and higher-than-average dividend yields. The firm also introduced the INTECH Global Dividend Low Volatility strategy, focused on absolute rather than relative risk. 

Altegris introduced a share class designed exclusively for registered investment advisers (RIAs). The “R” class shares are targeted at RIAs looking to diversify clients’ portfolios with private-placement hedge funds.

A retirement income product by Great-West Life & Annuity Insurance Company, Great-West SecureFoundation Smart Future, combines the traits of a mutual fund with a lifetime income guarantee for the bank-affiliated broker/dealer market.

Russell Investments and Barclays launched a set of investable liability-driven-investment (LDI) fixed-income benchmarks for U.S. corporate pension funds. This offers a standard set of rules-based and transparent fixed-income benchmarks designed for better liability-tracking properties than traditional benchmarks currently in use.

Expanding its retirement product suite, Allstate introduced IncomeProtector and GrowthProtector in 40 states. The Protector annuities offer a minimum guaranteed interest rate combined with an interest rate linked to a market index, such as the Standard & Poor’s 500. Both have a purchase payment bonus. While the annuity contract is in force, the bonus remains part of the contract value and is used to determine the payments the investor eventually receives. A bonus is fully vested after 10 years.