Press Release

Ascensus Announces Expansion of Personalized Advice and Managed Account Services

Issued by Ascensus

Sept. 1, 2020

Firm's Technology Integration Offers Institutional Partners and Advisors More Flexibility on Its Open-Architecture Platform

DRESHER, Pa., Sept. 1, 2020 -- Ascensus -- whose technology and expertise help millions of people save for retirement, education, and healthcare -- has created the infrastructure to expand the managed account services available to its institutional partners and clients. With an open-architecture platform and no proprietary investment requirements, Ascensus is well positioned to support this enhanced level of partner choice. The firm now offers four personalized advice and managed account services, with plans to add more options in the future.

Industry research has shown that employees today seek personalized advice services to help them chart appropriate savings strategies. According to Deloitte, retirement plan sponsors are recording higher-than-ever utilization of managed accounts. In 2019, one in five plan sponsors reported at least 10 percent of employees used managed account services.1 In response to participant interest and demand, more than half of plan sponsors are offering a managed account service, with this percentage continuing to rise.

"The retirement industry is seeing a trend toward saver personalization, and we believe that managed account solutions are an important piece of that puzzle," states Dan Basile, Ascensus' head of product. "By investing in the technology to support choice in advice services, we're better positioned to offer our partners the ability to implement their own fiduciary solutions moving forward. And, by expanding the managed account services Ascensus offers, we can give financial advisors the freedom to choose the option best suited to their clients' goals."

Ascensus offers managed account services from Morningstar Investment Management, NextCapital, Russell Investments, and Stadion. Institutional partners and financial advisors may choose to make one or several of these services available to clients during the plan proposal process.

"We will continue to leverage our purpose-built technology to offer our institutional partners expanded choice and enable them to deliver personalized account management services to their clients and savers," states David Musto, Ascensus' president and CEO. 

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