Products March 2, 2023

Investment Product and Service Launches

Alight expands financial wellness platform to include family members; C2P Enterprises announces women’s program; Equitable enhances buffered annuity suites; and more.

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Alight Lets Employees’ Family Members Use Workplace Wellness Platform

Alight Inc. has expanded its employee benefits platform, Alight Worklife, to be available for employees’ spouses and families. 

Lincolnshire, Illinois-based Alight said the new features are intended to further personalize employee well-being tools related to finances and health. The key highlights include:

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  • Team and individual challenges that gamify and incentivize wellness;
  • Expanded family access;
  • More personalized ranking and options for in-network healthcare provider recommendations based on an employee’s history and inputs; and
  • More personalized financial savings recommendations. 

“Our own data tells us that fewer than half of employees (44%) rate their overall wellbeing as positive,” Josh Welch, senior vice president of product management at Alight, said in a statement. “The combination of high-tech and high-touch is proving to be extremely effective in helping employees and their families make better, more informed decisions through complex moments that directly impact their physical, emotional and financial wellbeing.”  

C2P Enterprises Launches ‘A Woman’s Clarity’ Program

C2P Enterprises LLC announced the launch of its latest program for financial advisers, A Woman’s Clarity. The program states its ultimate mission is to empower women to take charge of their own economic future and educate other financial professionals about the unique challenges facing female clientele.

Participants will gain knowledge through ongoing thought leadership and networking, including a podcast series, live events, blogs and more. The first special event for A Woman’s Clarity will be a panel and Q&A session held on March 8, International Women’s Day.

“With this supportive, empowering, and educational exchange of ideas, we are working to close the loop and help ease the transition into retirement so that more women have the financial confidence and clarity they deserve in every stage of life,” said in a statement by Kirsten Schlumbohm, vice president of insurance sales at C2P and program host of A Woman’s Clarity.

Equitable Enhances Market-Leading Buffered Annuity Suites

Equitable, the principal franchise of Equitable Holdings Inc., announced enhancements to its buffered annuity suites that will provide clients with partial protection against market volatility. The new investment options can also offer positive or enhanced performance even if market index returns are negative.

Equitable’s suites, Structured Capital Strategies PLUS 21 and Structured Capital Strategies Income, give clients shorter investment durations to reallocate underlying investments in times of uncertainty.

A notable enhancement is Equitable’s Loss Limiter, a novel RILA investment feature that ensures clients will never lose more than 5% or 10% of their investments due to index performance in the Loss Limiter segment at maturity. 

“Clients continue to face persistent economic uncertainty and decreased investment returns, but still need to provide for themselves and their loved ones in retirement,” said Steve Scanlon, head of individual retirement at Equitable. “That’s why we’re committed to constantly reimagining our products and rolling out new enhancements, including additional partial protection against market upheaval, increased flexibility or the option for monthly retirement income, that can help them meet their goals.”

ComplySci Launches Regulatory Compliance Buyer’s Guide for U.S.-Based Financial Firms

ComplySci, a Comply portfolio firm and the leading provider of regulatory technology and compliance for the financial services sector, published its 2023 Regulatory Compliance Buyer’s Process Guide for U.S.-based financial firms. The guide aims to help compliance teams navigate the technology procurement process.

Guide highlights include:

  • Defining the process and scope of work necessary for procuring new technology;
  • Assessing the needs of the compliance department and the firm at-large;
  • Incorporating technical and functional requirements;
  • Qualifying questions to assess potential vendors;
  • Analyzing vendor capabilities to determine a best-fit match.

“The procurement process of an integrated regulatory compliance technology system is a significant and detail-oriented process, especially for firms which have not purchased and integrated a regulatory compliance technology recently,” COMPLY President Eric White said in a statement. “Our guide aims to provide a roadmap for decisionmakers to move from idea to project to procurement successfully—and finally, successful risk mitigation and compliant operations.”

Realized Launches Expanded Commercial Real Estate Wealth Management Capabilities

Startup company Realized announced a series of enhancements to help create more informed decisions when constructing customized portfolios of commercial real estate investments.

Realized Platform Enhancements:

  • Automated portfolio construction with customizable portfolio inputs like property types, location or deal length to provide a more timely, seamless deal process;
  • Fee-based accounts are designed for individuals looking for an ongoing, long-term relationship to guide the development of their commercial real estate portfolio;
  • Confidence scores will provide an analysis of the likelihood a sponsor will reach the projected income distributions outlined in their Private Placement Memorandum; and
  • White labeled investment plans and investor portals will allow advisers to apply their firm’s logo, a headshot and contact information to the client portal and investment plans.

“We expect this flight to passive real estate investing to persist as individuals increasingly seek alternative asset classes that are less correlated to the broader stock market,” said David Wieland, CEO and co-founder of Realized, in a statement. “The solutions we’ve introduced across Realized are a direct output of this demand and a demonstration of our commitment to arm individuals and their advisers with technology and resources that were previously only available to institutional investors and commercial property owners.”

Bogart Wealth Launches Advisor Growth Track

Bogart Wealth, an independent, fee-only wealth management and RIA firm, announced the launch of Advisor Growth Track, a professional growth and training program for both emerging talent and experienced financial advisers.

Advisers who are new to the field will be able to gain expertise in all aspects of holistic financial planning, including retirement planning, investment management, estate and multigenerational planning and more. For established advisers, Bogart Wealth creates a customized growth and succession plan for their continued growth.

“We are super excited to formally launch this program,” said James Bogart, president and CEO of Bogart Wealth, in a statement. “We’ve been training and developing our employees in the Bogart way for years, but we are officially launching Advisor Growth Track in order to help young and emerging professionals find their best fit by working a variety of roles within an established and rapidly growing wealth management firm, as well as experienced advisers create a glide path for the future.”

Compliance March 1, 2023

Senate Joins House in Refuting DOL’s ESG Rule

A resolution to nullify the DOL's rule permitting ESG investing in retirement plans will now go to President Joe Biden, who has said he will veto.

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The U.S. Senate followed the House of Representatives in approving a resolution that overturns the Department of Labor rule paving the way for the consideration, but not the requirement, of environmental, social and governance investing in retirement plans.

The Senate vote on House Joint Resolution 30, overturning the rule, passed with a 50-46 vote, with all Senate Republicans voting yes, as well as Senator Joe Manchin, D-West Virginia, and Senator Jon Tester, D-Montana. Three Democrats where absent. The act will now move to President Joe Biden’s desk, where he said Monday he will veto it in order to keep the DOL rule intact.

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The vote follows a House vote yesterday in which the resolution passed along party lines with a tally of 216 to 204. The DOL rule was finalized in November 2022 after more than a year of public comment and review. The rule removed what was essentially a chilling effect on recommending ESG-focused investment in retirement plans governed by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act that was enacted under the administration of President Donald Trump. That rule said that plan fiduciaries should only consider “pecuniary” factors in investment decisions. 

The Congressional move comes amid a national Republican-led movement against ESG-focused investing that has included lawsuits, both state and federal, seeking the removal of the DOL retirement investing rule. It also comes on the same day that Biden officially nominated Julie Su to be the new Secretary of Labor, with a Senate confirmation hearing to come. In his remarks about the nomination, Biden urged a swift vote, saying: “I asked the United States Senate to move this nomination quickly, so we … can continue the progress to build this economy that works for everyone.”

The debate over ESG investing may extend that confirmation hearing, according to some experts. The Biden Administration argued in its statement on Monday that permitting incorporation ofESG in investing does serve a fiduciary purpose, as “there is an extensive body of evidence that environmental, social and governance factors can have material impacts on certain markets, industries and companies.”

Dissenters, such as Tester, have said the potential to use ESG factors in plan investing will jeopardize the investments of everyday retirement savers.

“At a time when working families are dealing with higher costs, from health care to housing, we need to be focused on ensuring Montanans’ retirement savings are on the strongest footing possible,” Tester said in a statement on Wednesday. “I’m opposing this Biden administration rule because I believe it undermines retirement accounts for working Montanans and is wrong for my state.”

Senator Patty Murray, D-Washington, spoke in favor of the rule on the Senate floor, arguing that her colleagues misunderstand the DOL’s position regarding ESG investing in plans.

“This is a really important point I think folks are missing: the Biden rule is fundamentally neutral on how ESG factors are taken into consideration so long as the investment fund is meeting its fiduciary obligations to its beneficiaries,” she wrote in a statement. “The rule we are talking about is neutral on whether a fiduciary is considering these factors from a particular perspective.”

A February post by two legal scholars on the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance agreed with that assessment, noting that “the 2022 Biden Rule largely reaffirms the Department of Labor’s longstanding position, compelled by binding Supreme Court precedent, that an ERISA fiduciary may use ESG investing to improve risk-adjusted returns but not to obtain collateral benefits. Subject to a few nuanced changes of limited practical import, the Biden Rule is largely consistent with the 2020 Trump Rule and earlier regulatory guidance.”

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