Hot Off the Presses
New products, highlights, announcements
Tools for Sponsors and Participants
The Pentegra SmartPath from Pentegra Retirement Services details recommended and progressive 401(k) plan design best practices, such as how automatic plan features help retirement plan sponsors better meet the needs of plan participants and drive more successful outcomes. The brochure also offers sponsors a guide to implementing “auto” features, which can include auto-enrollment, auto-escalation of salary deferrals, automatic portfolio rebalancing and qualified default investment vehicles.
TIAA-CREF unveiled PlanFocus, a website to help both retirement plan sponsors and advisers or consultants to manage and optimize plan operations, drive outcomes and engage employees. Key features include plan analytics with multidimensional data-filtering and -reporting capabilities, fiduciary and compliance resources, and a single access point for regulatory updates and developments.
Aspire Financial Services created an enhanced 403(b) enrollment and client service portal that provides quick navigation for participants and advisers to access enrollment materials and plan information. It features Web-based search capabilities, making it easier to locate a plan, its fund options and associated financial advisers. The enhanced enrollment portal, combined with Aspire’s 403(b) K–12 suite of solutions, provides access to plan data, configurable investment choices and information about financial planning, as well as the ability to monitor financial performance. The portal is for school districts and other governmental employers and nonprofits.
USI Consulting Group is offering retirement planning and consulting services that include guaranteed lifetime income solutions for defined contribution (DC) plan participants. USI Consulting Group has teamed with Ash Brokerage to offer Direct Solutions, a rollover program, and USI Annuity retirement solutions, which provides advanced planning and personalized support to address the lifetime income needs of retiring participants. Direct Solutions, a bundled service program arrangement, is aimed at participants who are unsure how to assess their retirement income needs or choose income annuity options on their own.
A series of plan designs from The Retirement Advantage (TRA) aims to help employers in various industries—including health care, engineering, computer services, financial services and manufacturing—boost employees’ retirement readiness. Specific features are intended to increase the odds of achieving readiness while reducing fiduciary risk and simplifying administration for the plan sponsor.
LPL Financial has added interactive workshops and webcasts from Financial Finesse to its Worksite Financial Solutions platform. The aim is to engage retirement plan participants through case studies, competitions and calculations, showing how their decisions affect their financial health over time. Groups of workshop and webcast participants compete through the program’s Money Madness format, answering key financial questions in an effort to achieve the winning score.
Wells Fargo Advisors added the Income Center suite of applications (apps) to its Envision retirement planning tool, to give plan participants who are nearing or in retirement a detailed view of their post-employment income prospects. Features include a dashboard with current retirement income and strategies that can bring more revenue to the portfolio. Investors can schedule withdrawals, showing where in the portfolio additional funds could be found in case of a shortfall.
Investments
The passive Schwab Indexed Retirement Trust Funds (SIRT Funds)—collective trust funds—from Charles Schwab Bank feature an institutional share class with a 0.08% expense ratio and a $100 million minimum investment. The funds’ broad asset class diversification provides exposure to commodities, emerging markets and global real estate investment trusts (REITs), among other classes. The funds’ open architecture design can help sponsors with concerns about possible conflicts of interest with all-proprietary approaches.
Recently launched Corporate Responsibility Indices (CRI) from Thomson Reuters measure the performance of European companies with superior ratings for environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) practices. Investors may apply filters based on the industry, country and regional focus of a company’s operations. Live calculation of the CRI Europe ESG, CRI Europe Environmental, CRI Europe Social and CRI Europe Governance indices began in late July.
The Guardian Insurance & Annuity Co. Inc. (GIAC) added 21 investment options to The Guardian Choice and The Guardian Advantage group retirement plan products, increasing the flexibility and breadth of asset classes for plan sponsors using these products to fund qualified retirement plans. The additions include offerings from new fund families such as American Funds, Morgan Stanley Investment Management, Natixis Funds, OppenheimerFunds and Putnam Investments. New funds are also being added from existing fund families, including Vanguard, MFS, Franklin Templeton Investments and Invesco.
Morningstar shines a light on the origins of strategic beta and various types of risk these strategies look to control in “A Global Guide to Strategic Beta Exchange-Traded Products [ETPs],” its first global landscape report about strategic beta ETPs. The report examines trends in asset growth, asset flows, product development and fees by region, and provides a practical guide to analyzing strategic beta.
Charles Schwab added 65 exchange-traded funds (ETFs) to the Schwab ETF OneSource platform, bringing the total to about 180 ETFs. Seven firms, including PIMCO, ProShares and Direxion Investments, have joined the original six ETF providers on OneSource. ETFs covering 65 Morningstar categories may be traded, with no early redemption fees, enrollment requirements or online trade commissions—critical factors in evaluating the total cost of an ETF.
Tools for Advisers
Retirement plan advisers can use Merrill Edge’s MythBuster, a micro-site that helps small-business owners navigate retirement plan choices and cut through the fog of common plan misconceptions about the time or cost involved. Based on a business owner’s priorities, users may compare and clarify plan details. The site aims to be intuitive enough for business owners to use on their own or with an adviser.
JH Plan Manager, a website and online tool set from John Hancock Retirement Plan Services, simplifies 401(k) plan management while helping advisers establish and deliver on their value proposition. Information on plan clients enables advisers to recommend and schedule key activities—plan and investment reviews, plan design discussions and employee education—through the tool’s concise calendar format to produce a formal service plan or education policy statement (EPS).
A new white paper from consulting and communication solutions firm ShoeFitts Marketing helps retirement plan advisers establish key social media best practices. “Best Practices for Financial Services Firms: Rolling Out a Social Media Policy” includes step-by-step guidance on how to effectively meet client demands for increased connectivity online, and is meant to assist advisory firms and broker/dealers (B/Ds) that are still reluctant to create such a policy.
Retirement plan advisers can quickly access the business development team and sales tools of Benefit Plans Plus (BPP) via a new mobile application (app) that supports advisers. Users may request recordkeeping and third-party-administrator (TPA) proposals, view sample plan designs and walk clients through the benefits of design changes. Other features include a weekly newsletter with industry content and a schedule of events. The app, which can be located by searching for “BPP,” is available for Apple and Android devices.