Products January 18, 2017

Advicent Reveals Strategic Partnership with Janney Montgomery Scott

Janney will utilize Advicent’s NaviPlan financial planning software along with its expanded retirement income evaluation tools. 
Reported by

Advicent and Janney Montgomery Scott announced a new strategic partnership aimed at combining the firms’ capabilities in comprehensive financial planning software, Department of Labor (DOL) fiduciary compliance, and other areas of practice management.

Specifically, Janney will implement NaviPlan into its workflow with both prospects and clients, with the goal of improving “account aggregation, comprehensive goal-based assessments, detailed cash-flow analysis programs, and scenario simulation calculations.”

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With the new DOL fiduciary regulations slated to unfold in April, the firms are just the latest to announce adjustments to processes and products.

“The ability to remain transparent with clients and prospects is key to any financial services business, especially given the future changes expected from the DOL,” observes Martin Schamis, vice president and head of wealth planning at Janney.

In addition to the partnership announcement, Janney says it is also “upgrading and reconstructing” its proprietary Retirement Income Evaluator (RIE) tool through the NaviPlan Presentation Module. This will “allow Janney to mold financial planning tools and custom presentations to fit their process and branded specifications.”

Firms widely anticipate making these types of moves amid the new fiduciary environment—building new partnerships to rapidly bring online new capabilities in client service and fiduciary control.

Phil Cunningham, CEO at Advicent, concludes that the partnership is particularly timely, and that it remains crucial to reinvest in “a variety of efficient and effective technology-based opportunities” to find success in the new DOL environment.

For more information, visit www.advicentsolutions.com. 

Data & Research January 18, 2017

Gender Pay Gap Affects Women's Retirement Savings

Women must save more than men to build an equivalent nest egg, NerdWallet finds.
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The average American woman must save $1.25 for every $1 a man invests in retirement savings to build an equivalent nest egg, a NerdWallet data analysis shows.

For every dollar men earn, women in the U.S. make 80 cents on average, according to the latest available data. That wage gap can lead to an even bigger divide down the road when it comes to retirement savings in a 401(k), NerdWallet says.

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The company looked at U.S. Census Bureau data from 2007 and 2015 and found Rhode Island saw the earnings difference narrow the most. There, women have to save for retirement at a rate of $1.17 for every $1 men put away. In Oklahoma—the bottom-ranking state for wage gap improvement during the same time period—women planning for retirement would need to sock away $1.37 for every $1 men save.

NerdWallet notes this doesn’t mean women need to move. “Research suggests the issue isn’t so much that a woman working as a bank teller in any given state makes less than her male colleague at the next window; rather, it’s that the odds are greater that he will rise to bank manager someday,” it says.

“The wage gap means women need to save more of every dollar they earn to accumulate the same amount of money as men,” says Arielle O’Shea, NerdWallet’s investing and retirement specialist. “That’s difficult to achieve, particularly when women spend more time out of the workforce to raise children or care for family members. Retirement savings may be put on hold during those times, and employer matching dollars are left on the table.”

More of the analysis is available here.

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