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December 2021

December 15, 2021 In Consolidation of Recordkeepers, Recordkeepers

Don’t let your current recordkeeper decide who your new recordkeeper will be.

Don’t let your current recordkeeper decide who your new recordkeeper will be. There has been considerable consolidation among retirement plan recordkeepers over the past few years.  The retirement plan business of Prudential Financial and MassMutual were recently purchased by Empower.  Principal acquired Wells Fargo’s retirement plan recordkeeping and trust business.  PNC Bank sold their book of retirement plan clients to Newport Group, who in turn recently announced that they (Newport) will merge into Ascensus.  Ascensus themselves has acquired over 30 third party administrators over the past few years.  Voya is rumored to be buying Alight.  It’s hard to keep track without a score card. Yet, plan sponsors and retirement plan advisors must keep track! The objective of the acquirer of course is to pick up several hundred or thousands of new plan clients from the exiting recordkeeper.  Post-acquisition, sponsors will likely have to transition to the new recordkeeper’s systems.  There will most assuredly be a new service agreement, new contacts, perhaps a new fee schedule and undoubtedly new (or missing!)  processes, procedures, features and benefits.  Despite this potential turmoil, many sponsors and advisors simply go with the flow and stand by while the plan transitions. This is unwise at best and negligent at worst. 

November 22, 2021 In 401(k), 403(b), Asset Based Fees, Fees, Fiduciary

Revenue sharing is on the decline, as it should be.

The use of revenue sharing in retirement plans is on the decline, and this is a good thing. Plan sponsor surveys by both Callan and the Plan Sponsor Council of America highlight the decline in use of revenue sharing from over 21% of plans to about 15% in 2019. However, revenue sharing still runs rampant in smaller 401(k)s, and among 403(b) plans. Revenue sharing is an additional cost, tacked onto the expense ratio of a mutual fund or insurance product to pay for (typically) either the advisor’s services (aka 12(b)(1)s) and/or recordkeeping services (sub TAs). It ranges between 5 and 75 basis points and basically represents indirect and sub-surface payments from one service provider to another. The model is fraught with problems. For example: Uneven revenue sharing among different funds in a given plan means that some participants are paying more (in the form of a higher expense ratio) than others for the same service. Poorly disclosed revenue sharing leaves participants and many plan sponsors in the dark about what they’re paying. Indeed as many as 30% of plan sponsors admitted to not knowing if revenue share agreements were in force. Given all the recent fee litigation, sponsors should want to know, and advisors should

July 1, 2021 In NWPS News, Raymond James, Service Model

From the Desk of the President

It has been 6 months since NWPS officially became part of the Raymond James family of companies, and consistent with our initial messaging, it has been business as usual. NWPS continues to welcome new clients monthly, continues to adhere to our "no solicitation" policy of either plan sponsors or participants and has no plans to introduce Raymond James products or advisors to our clients. We have not changed our service model nor reduced staff. On the contrary, we have increased headcount over the last 6 months. We are also in the midst of an IT transition which will further enhance our cybersecurity capabilities and add more layers of protection for our clients and their participants. More visibly, we have rolled out and (already) enhanced a new retirement readiness tool on the participant website called iJoin. We're getting great feedback from participants. We have found that once a participant goes through the experience, they often return multiple times to review and tweak their retirement strategy —- which is exactly what we like to see. We've also added nearly two dozen short, BrainShark-like videos on everything from The Power of Compounding to The Cost of Waiting. Take a preview here. More enhancements in

January 14, 2021 In 401(k), Advisors, Fiduciary, Participant, Participant Data, Recordkeepers

Recordkeeper consolidation may be coming, but don’t squeeze the participant!

The idea that a recordkeeper should “monetize” participants is appalling. George and Abigail Revoir of AMRev Consulting, writing in the November 4th 2020 edition of RPA Convergence opine on recordkeeper consolidation and the ever widening gap between mega and midsize providers. No question there is revenue pressure in our business, but one comment in their otherwise satisfactory analysis of this trend stopped us in our tracks. The end game, says the Revoirs, is to “monetize the participants.” Monetize the participants? How appalling! What plan sponsor wants to hear that in a “finals” presentation! “Mr. Plan Sponsor, we offer X, Y and Z services, but what we’re really after is access to your employees to upsell them non-plan related products and services.” Which CFO is OK providing 100% of employees’ personally identifiable information to an organization that will use it to “monetize” her employees? Be assured, it is quite possible to profitably serve plan sponsors and their participants with accurate, responsive and innovate recordkeeping without having to view participants as piggy banks. NWPS has been doing it for 26 years and we are certainly not the only ones. And let’s not forget the current discussion over who really owns the participant data