Product & Service Launches

State Street Provides 4 Additional Market Sector ETFs

State Street Investment Management, the asset management business of State Street Corp., launched four exchange-traded funds that track market-capitalization-weighted S&P 500 sector indexes.

The new ETFs are State Street S&P 500 Consumer Discretionary Market Sector SPDR ETF; State Street S&P 500 Consumer Staples Market Sector SPDR ETF; State Street S&P 500 Energy Market Sector SPDR ETF; and State Street S&P 500 Technology Market Sector SPDR ETF.

As their names imply, the separate ETFs track consumer discretionary, consumer staples, energy and technology.

State Street Investment Management had $2.2 trillion in ETF assets under management as of June 30.

DeepVest Launches Financial Planning Platform PlanLab

DeepVest, an artificial-intelligence-powered investment platform, launched a financial planning platform for advisers, PlanLab.

According to the announcement, PlanLab can cover the “near-entirety of a household’s financial picture,” including retirement plans, taxes, investments, estate planning, insurance, risk, goals, behavioral factors, household details and business ownership.

PlanLab provides an AI planning assistant and planning calculators for Social Security claiming, Roth conversions, withdrawal sequencing, required minimum distributions, estate taxes and annual gifting. It can connect with customer relationship management and custodial programs, as well as calculate how much a client has drifted from a retirement plan.

Allianz Life Offers Death Benefit Rider for RILAs

Allianz Life Insurance Co. of North America introduced Legacy+ Income Benefit, a death benefit rider for registered index-linked annuities. According to the announcement, Legacy+ Income Benefit will continue to provide a death benefit even if the contract value is depleted by income payments.

The protected benefit for beneficiaries is locked in at 50% of the accumulated contract value when income payments start and will not change, regardless of how long the retiree receives income payments, according to Allianz. The benefit can be accessed earlier if circumstances change.

The Legacy+ Income Benefit is available on two Allianz Life RILAs: Index Advantage+ Select Income Annuity and Income Advantage ADV Annuity.

Voya Financial Taps UnqorkAI for AI-Powered Workflows

Voya Financial Inc., a retirement, employee benefits and investment management company, announced it will use the artificial-intelligence-powered platform UnqorkAI to support AI-powered workflows.

Building on Voya’s existing partnership with Unqork Inc., the developer of UnqorkAI, the platform can build and run AI-generated applications with increased speed, predictability and governance at a fraction of current enterprise total cost of ownership, according to the announcement.

UnqorkAI includes plan sponsor onboarding and producer onboarding applications.

Abacus Global Management, Retirable Team Up on Personalized Planning

Abacus Global Management Inc., a financial services company specializing in alternative asset management, is partnering with the retirement planning platform Retirable Inc. to provide personalized retirement planning.

Abacus and its insurance affiliates will introduce clients to Retirable’s licensed fiduciary advisers through dedicated channels, including warm transfers and scheduled introductions.

Abacus LifeARC, lifespan modeling technology provided by Abacus, will be introduced to the Retirable platform and can generate lifespan projections for Retirable’s advisers to inform retirement income and legacy planning.

Corebridge Financial Offers Progressive Trigger Index Annuity

Corebridge Financial Inc. introduced Progressive Trigger, an index annuity interest-crediting strategy designed to help customers preserve future growth potential during down markets.

Progressive Trigger allows eligible interest percentages to accumulate following periods of negative index performance. If the trigger condition is met later in the strategy’s five-year term, the retained percentages are combined with the current year’s percentage to determine the interest credit. If the trigger condition is never met during the five-year term, the principal remains protected from market losses, but no interest is credited and the retained percentages expire.

Progressive Trigger is available exclusively through the Power Select Builder index annuity, which is distributed by Market Synergy Group, a network of independent marketing organizations.