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Driving Enterprise Strength in the Retirement Industry: Challenges, Trends and Smarter Solutions

"Adapting to today's environment does not mean taking on massive, high-risk transformations. In fact, some of the most effective strategies are incremental and pragmatic. Modernize platforms gradually.... Elevate operational excellence.  ... Adopt adaptive workforce models.  ... Strengthen data foundations."

Compliance Without Compromise: Unlocking Savings Through Outsourcing

"[1] Challenges of in-house retirement plan administration ... [2] Core benefits of outsourcing retirement plan administration ... [3] Outsourcing models ... [4] Critical considerations when selecting an outsourcing provider ... [5] The business case for outsourcing."

Navigating the Minefield: Cash Reconciliation in 401(k) Recordkeeping Migrations

"Migrations between 401(k) recordkeepers are inherently complex. While much of the focus is placed on the successful transfer of participant data, investment funds, and loan balances, cash reconciliation is often the area where operational risk quietly surfaces. Failing to fully reconcile cash inflows, outflows, and trades during the transition can lead to service disruptions, uninvested funds to audit findings and potential compliance breaches."

SECURE 2.0: What Service Providers Need to Do Now to Support Plan Sponsors and Participants

"Update/enhance recordkeeping systems, thresholds, and platforms to support and comply with new regulatory requirements. This includes automating services to help reduce the burden of administration.... [P]roactively provide easy-to-understand educational materials ... to accommodate diverse learning preferences.... [C]ontinue to develop their product and service offerings to deliver the best possible participant experience. This includes offering the ability to utilize certain customization based on an employer's workforce needs."

From ERISA to Innovation: Harnessing Data Modeling for Modern Retirement Services (PDF)

"Data modeling is the process of creating conceptual and logical frameworks that organize, structure, and represent data about retirement plans, financial products, and client behavior. In the retirement industry, it helps providers manage and analyze data about participants, financial products, and client behavior.... By establishing a common language for data, organizations can streamline operations, enhance decision-making, and lay the groundwork for advanced analytics."

Retirement Plans Can Provide Critical Emergency Disaster Relief

"[SECURE 2.0] allows special distribution and loan rules from retirement plans for individuals impacted by qualified federally declared disasters. This provision enables employers to offer financial assistance to plan participants by allowing emergency withdrawals or loans without incurring the 10% early withdrawal penalty. To qualify, a participant's principal residence must be located in the disaster area during the incident period, and they must have experienced an economic loss due to the disaster."

SECURE Act 2.0: Charting the Compliance Timeline

"Until a plan formally adopts these amendments, recordkeepers, plan sponsors, consultants, and advisors must diligently keep track of all elected discretionary and mandatory amendments, along with the effective dates, to ensure they are in compliance with relevant provisions. [A table] outlines the deadlines to formally adopt these required and discretionary amendments."

Upcoming Retirement Plan Compliance Deadlines

"[The authors] have compiled a comprehensive guide outlining the multitude regulatory plan document amendments and restatement deadlines. Spanning from 2025 through 2029, these deadlines necessitate meticulous preparation and organization to ensure timely compliance."

SECURE 2.0: Navigating the Compliance Landscape

"Employers, recordkeepers, payroll providers, consultants, and legal counsel will need to work closely in conjunction to implement and ensure plans are operating in compliance with the SECURE Act changes, and plan sponsors will need to educate and inform plan participants regarding these changes. Certain provisions may require manual workarounds as some service providers may not have an automated platform available or still need to update software programs to accommodate the changes. It is important that service providers have an operational checklist to assist plan sponsors in documenting and tracking elections until the plan amendment is signed."

Recordkeeper Survey Highlights Challenges in Keeping Plan Documents Compliant Throughout Recent Regulatory Upheaval

"Communication to Plan Sponsors came in first as the most challenging aspect of the Cycle 3 Restatement ... [C]lear documentation of how plans operated in good faith with CARES and SECURE Act 1.0 is critical.... [SECURE 2.0 features identified as] most challenging ... included: [1] Mandatory auto-enrollment; [2] Rothification of catch-up contributions; [3] Removal of Roth from RMD calculations; [4] Student loan match, collecting the necessary data and its impact on testing; [5] Required paper statements and the impact on cost."