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| Benefits & Administration |
| The Future of Tech and Services for Retirement Plans |
| Many retirement plan service providers are
investing in technology to link and leverage data from banks, insurers and
other places where participants hold assets outside their retirement accounts. “I’m
expecting differentiation in the coming years that will see leading plan
provider Internet sites become highly responsive and customizable for the
individual participant,” says Gary Josephs, managing principal at Retirement
Benefits Group. Josephs tells PLANSPONSOR that significant industry attention
is fixed on the notion of creating “a holistic eMoney overlay right inside the
plan portal.”Read more > |
| MOSER Participants’ Accounts Hacked |
| The Missouri State Employees Retirement System
(MOSERS) reported that someone gained “unauthorized access” to four
members’ accounts. The hacker or hackers filled out online forms that required
the use of the members’ Social Security numbers, retirement identification
numbers and passwords, according to news reports. Candy Smith, the retirement
system’s communication and strategic planning coordinator, told the Jefferson
City News Tribune attempts to get money were detected, and no money was
released.Read more > |
| NCR Corporation has entered into an agreement
with Principal Life Insurance Company under which it purchased a single premium
group annuity contract from The Principal to secure approximately $160 million
of benefits for about 4,500 former employees or their related beneficiaries who
commenced monthly pension benefits under the plan before January 1, 1994.Read more > |
| Little Change in Retirement Assets in Q3 |
| The
Investment Company Institute’s (ICI’s)
latest quarterly assessment shows retirement assets account for 36% of all
household financial assets in the United States. Total U.S. retirement assets
were $24.2 trillion as of September 30, 2014, about unchanged from the end of
June, according to the ICI’s Q3 Retirement Update. The data suggests unfunded
liabilities are a larger issue for government DB plans than for private-sector
DB plans.Read more > |
| MetLife Inc. announced it has signed an
agreement with TRW Automotive, a subsidiary of TRW Automotive Holdings Corp,
for MetLife to provide pension benefits to 7,045 retirees and current
beneficiaries in TRW’s defined benefit plan. The $440 million transaction
follows TRW’s announcement last month that the company had entered into a
partial buy-out agreement with Legal & General Assurance Society related to
£2.5 billion ($3.9 billion) of its U.K. pension scheme. Both transactions are
part of TRW’s overall plan to reduce its pension liabilities in the U.K., U.S.
and Canada.Read more > |
