Global Retirement Partners Teams with Financial Finesse

A partnership between Global Retirement Partners (GRP) member firms and Financial Finesse will give advisers working in the GRP Advisor Alliance access to comprehensive financial wellness programs for plan participant clients, driven by content and services from Financial Finesse.

GRP was established last year, when LPL Financial reached a partnership agreement with Financial Telesis and Bill Chetney, former LPL Retirement Partners president, to create a new retirement plan advisory firm, known as Global Retirement Partners (see “LPL and Financial Telesis Create New RIA Firm“). At that time, Chetney became CEO and partner at the new firm, while Jim Williams, Financial Telesis’ founder and CEO, was named president. Since then, Chetney has sold GRP to a group of seven advisory firms, retaining his management role.

The current move represents a significant step forward in building out the GRP Advisor Alliance, which Chetney describes as a community of advisers sharing insights and access to helpful tools and client deliverables. Financial Finesse is the first such tool, though Chetney says more deals are in progress.

Chetney tells PLANADVISER GRP signed an enterprise-level seven-figure contract with Financial Finesse, which will provide GRP member firms with full access to Financial Finesse’s Online Financial Learning Center, along with patent-pending financial wellness assessments. Once plan sponsor clients of GRP advisers sign on to the program, their plan participants gain access to “unlimited phone-based financial coaching through Financial Finesse’s team of Certified Financial Planners (CFPs), and access to an extensive library of content, tools, and curriculum to enhance their existing financial education initiatives.” Although the advisers had access to part of Financial Finesse’s offerings in the past though the LPL Worksite Solutions program, LPL did not have the full enterprise contract, meaning this is an improvement upon the prior services and access.

Christopher Giles, president of GRP Advisor Alliance, says the goal of the new partnership with Financial Finesse is to provide helpful advice and education services at “an affordable price point so that plan advisers can gain greater market share in the growing and increasingly competitive retirement plan advisory business.”

Chetney says the wellness services are already available and can be selected by plan sponsors working with GRP and the Advisor Alliance. The services are designed to be affordable, he adds, with expenses assessed as a flat per-participant fee ranging between $1 and $2, depending on the size of the engagement. “The cost is quite nominal compared with the value,” he says.

Liz Davidson, CEO of Financial Finesse, says this deal has the “potential to be a game changer for participants,” who increasingly report a desire for unbiased financial guidance but no avenues to access such a service through their retirement plans.