While a new study finds that satisfaction among clients using financial advisors has risen over the past year, it also finds, however, a growing lack of loyalty among more affluent Millennials. According to J.D. Power's 2024 U.S. Full-Service Investor Satisfaction Study, overall investor... READ MORE

Retirement income continued its industry march on Thursday with Empower announcing a host of new partnerships with asset management and insurance companies to offer several in-plan and out-of-plan guaranteed retirement income products for plan participants and investors. The Colorfado-based... READ MORE

Expanding its universe from HSAs, FSAs and other employee-benefit accounts, HSA Bank this week announced that it will begin offering an emergency savings account (ESA) solution.   The ESA is an employer-sponsored, consumer-owned bank account intended to help employees save for unexpected expenses... READ MORE

ERISA consultants at the Retirement Learning Center Resource Desk regularly receive calls from financial advisors on a broad array of technical topics related to IRAs, qualified retirement plans and other types of retirement savings and income plans, including nonqualified plans, stock options, and... READ MORE

A new report by a collaborative of industry stakeholders suggests that low-cost, plan-design solutions to nudge participants to avoid early withdrawals could make a significant dent in the racial and gender retirement savings gap. The report also observes, however, that more study is needed to... READ MORE

An interesting—and somewhat counterintuitive—report came out last week, one that cast doubt on the “common wisdom” regarding Roth versus traditional pre-tax savings. The assumption underlying the research[i] was that those who had not yet paid taxes on their savings (the traditional pre-tax... READ MORE

Following through on its warning, the Securities and Exchange Commission on March 18 announced that two investment advisers have settled charges with the commission for making “false and misleading statements” about their purported use of artificial intelligence (AI). The firms—Delphia (USA) Inc.... READ MORE

What's in the episode? Defined contribution plans, and 401(k)s specifically, are increasingly under attack, criticized by think tanks and academics for perceived (yet easily refuted) flaws. What—and who—is behind the effort? Are the criticisms resonating and why are they happening now? Does the... READ MORE

In what may come as no surprise, a new survey that looks at plan sponsor attitudes toward retirement plan management finds that plan sponsors that use outsourced fiduciaries highly value the service as an important backstop. When asked what resources they currently use to help manage fiduciary... READ MORE

It’s increasing, but is it enough? Stubbornly high inflation has The Senior Citizens League (TSCL) raising its 2025 COLA estimate to 2.4%, based on the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Price Index (and increase of 3.2%) released Tuesday. While it’s still very early, the one percentage point... READ MORE

Tom Hansen and Tony Michael didn’t like the limitations of the recordkeeping software available on the market, so they built their own. The proprietors of inVesti Financial developed inVesti-RKS (Record Keeping Services) platform and successfully integrated this week with UMB Bank and Matrix... READ MORE

The IRS has confirmed that they expect to fix a system-wide glitch that has resulted in improperly withheld refunds of erroneous penalties related to Form 8955-SSA filings.  Kelsey Mayo, the American Retirement Association’s Director of Regulatory Policy, reports that some plan sponsors’ refunds... READ MORE