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BofA Merrill Enhances Stock Services
The Bank of America Merrill Lynch equity compensation business has
enhanced its services to assist companies in managing such benefits as
performance stock, restricted stock, and stock option awards.
According to John Furlong, head of product management for Bank of America Merrill Lynch Retirement Services, recent enhancements benefiting participants in these programs include:
- the addition of multi-lingual capabilities (French, Spanish German, Italian, Japanese, and Mandarin Chinese),
- increased integration with employee stock purchase plans,
- mobility tracking, which the firm says assists in the assessment of changing tax requirements for employees who work in multiple states or countries and those that may require allocation of their time among corporate subsidiaries.
Bank of America Merrill Lynch supports more than 600 equity award plans covering nearly 2.5 million participants in more than 100 countries, including 21 of the Fortune 125 companies, according to the announcement. As of September 30, approximately 70% of these clients fully outsourced the day-to-day recordkeeping and administration responsibilities of their equity awards plans to the organization.