New T. Rowe Price/FIS Arrangement to Accelerate Recordkeeping Enhancements

Planned enhancements include recordkeeping modernization, additional retirement income experiences and new financial wellness capabilities, among others.

T. Rowe Price Group Inc. has announced plans to transform its full-service retirement recordkeeping business by expanding its 30-year relationship with FIS, a financial technology provider.

FIS serves some of the industry’s largest recordkeepers and provides the technology platform for 50 million participants and more than $3 trillion in assets.

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For T. Rowe Price, FIS will assume responsibility for managing retirement technology development and core operations. As a result, about 800 T. Rowe Price operations and technology associates are being offered the same roles with FIS that they have today, with the transition effective August 1. The transitioning associates will remain in their current facilities in Owings Mills, Maryland, and Colorado Springs, Colorado, and continue to serve the T. Rowe Price account and clients.

T. Rowe Price will maintain its responsibilities for delivering investment management, high-touch client service and personalized participant experiences. Sponsors will continue to be served by their same client service teams at T. Rowe Price, and T. Rowe Price will retain accountability for all recordkeeping services.

The firms say leveraging FIS’ expertise in fintech and service delivery, along with its significant investments in its retirement business, will enable T. Rowe Price to accelerate the pace of enhancements it delivers to clients, including recordkeeping modernization; additional retirement income experiences; new financial wellness and digital payment capabilities; and incorporation of the latest in artificial intelligence (AI), automation and robotics technology. These enhancements will be delivered while ensuring there is no disruption to plan sponsors or participants. Because T. Rowe Price already uses FIS’ recordkeeping platform, there will be no conversion or transition for any clients.

Bill Stromberg, chief executive officer of T. Rowe Price, says that with the retirement plan recordkeeping business being dynamic and highly competitive, and following an extensive strategic review of the business, the company concluded that expanding its partnership with FIS would best accelerate the transformation of the business and support scalable growth for the long term.

“We believe we are at a point where the industry is ripe for significant change in how retirement offerings are delivered. Expanding our partnership with FIS will keep us ahead of new trends and position T. Rowe Price for ongoing industry leadership, enabling us to influence fintech development and inform a new way of doing business that has the potential to become a standard for the industry over the next 20 years,” says Dee Sawyer, head of individual investors and retirement plan services at T. Rowe Price.

“The retirement industry demands state-of-the-art solutions in response to evolving plan sponsor, adviser and participant expectations,” says Kevin Collins, head of retirement plan services at T. Rowe Price. “By aligning our investment management capabilities and well-regarded high-touch service with their cutting-edge fintech and retirement operations, we get the best of both worlds. This will accelerate our delivery of innovative solutions and compelling digital experiences designed to span employee needs, spur participants to act and maximize value for plan sponsors.”

TRA Releases E-Book on Group 401(k) Plans for Advisers

It focuses on MEPs, PEPs and aggregation programs.

The Retirement Advantage Inc. (TRA) has introduced a new e-book exclusively for financial advisers, “The Advisor’s Guide to Group 401(k) Plans: MEPs, PEPs & Aggregation Programs.”

The e-book is part of the firm’s campaign to partner with financial advisers so that more of its business clients can offer multiple employer plans (MEPs) and pooled employer plans (PEPs).

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“It’s no secret that we’ve got to make it possible for more people to save for retirement,” says Trey Galuppi, TRA’s national group plan specialist. “And employers want to provide the benefits that will help them attract and retain talented team members, without losing focus on their bottom lines. Group 401(k) plans can be the answer to these challenges.”

Galuppi notes that there’s no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to group 401(k) plans. “With the SECURE [Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement] Act of 2019, there’s been a lot of media focus on the elimination of the ‘one bad apple’ rule for MEPs and creation of PEPs,” he says. “This is an important part of the group 401(k) plan story, but not the whole story.”

He adds, “For example, another solution we think shouldn’t be overlooked is an aggregation program, which can also provide the economies of scale, lessened administrative burdens and the mitigation of fiduciary risks that make all group 401(k) plans attractive versus single-employer plans.”

Advisers can download the e-book here.

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