Fidelity Releases NetBenefits App for iPad

After the 2013 launch of the company’s NetBenefits Smartphone App, the company is now expanding its capabilities for the workplace by launching a tablet app designed for today’s increasingly mobile work force.

Consumer demand for tablets is driving incredible adoption of the devices, the firm says, far outpacing the interest in traditional personal computers. This expansion also helps with employees who do not have access to keyboards and screens at their workplace, such as those at retail stores, on manufacturing floors, in health care environments and classrooms.

“In creating this app, we focused on how people interact with tablets, which we find is frequently in an interactive, two-way experience,” says Charles Berman, senior vice president of digital platforms at Fidelity Investments in Boston. “Tablets are becoming the device of choice when people want to utilize services, play games, schedule trips, read books and share memories. Apps today must meet peoples’ expectations while delivering an entertaining and fulfilling experience. Our new NetBenefits tablet app does exactly that.”

Fidelity’s new app joins the company’s existing mobile applications to ensure all participants have access to its benefits plan over the device of their choice. The company will extend its NetBenefits mobile experience to additional platforms later in 2014.

The iPad app offers such features as:

• A peer comparison capability enables users to evaluate aspects of their portfolio (such as savings rate, account balance and rate of return) in relation to people in similar cohorts, such as age or region.
• Broader access to Fidelity’s NetBenefits Library, a one-stop destination for educational guidance about a person’s employee benefits, from retirement plans to health savings accounts. The library includes financial and health care content (videos, podcasts, workshops, tools and articles) and filters for faster searching.
• Enhanced data visualization of a participant’s investment account portfolio, contribution rate, balance and personal rate of return, specifically designed for the tablet environment.

During 2014 more enhancements will complement these capabilities and those recently announced, such as Easy Enroll, a patent-pending offering that simplifies the enrollment process by allowing employees to join their workplace savings plan with just a few taps on their tablet or device, according to Fidelity.

The new NetBenefits for iPad app is now available to Fidelity’s 16.6 million workplace plan participants and may be downloaded for free from the iTunes App Store.