Products September 19, 2007

Online 401(k) Teams with E-chx

The Online 401(k) has partnered with E-chx Inc., to offer a combined 401(k)-payroll service.
Reported by

The two companies will offer the combined service to smaller firms that include features normally available to their larger counterparts.

“We are looking forward to enhancing E-chx’s offering with our 401(k) solution, which suits the needs of their customers and is easy to get up and running as well as maintain,” said Chad Parks, CEO of The Online 401(k), in a press release.

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E-chx Inc., headquartered in Rochester, New York, was founded in 2001 and provides payroll services on a national level to more than 6,000 customers.

Small businesses interested in learning more about The Online 401(k) and E-chx can request a quote at http://www.theonline401k.com/go/e-chx.

Products September 18, 2007

BenefitStreet Expands 401(k) Platform to Include Mutual Funds

BenefitStreet Inc. has introduced a new 401(k) platform that will enable investors to choose both exchange traded funds (ETFs) and mutual funds in the same plan.
Reported by

The latest version of the company’s 401(k) platform is now available to plan sponsors and independent advisers to incorporate a range of 401(k) investment vehicles, including index-tracking ETFs, index mutual funds, and actively managed mutual funds.

According to a BenefitStreet press release, traditional 401(k) recordkeeping systems were designed to allow incremental investments in mutual funds and other products that do not trade in whole shares on an exchange. BenefitStreet’s recent introduction of its ETF-only 401(k) platform addressed this technology issue to enable direct, incremental investments in ETFs. The platform aggregates ETF orders across all plan sponsors and places trades at the fund level to reduce trading costs at the participant level to a fraction of a penny, the announcement said.

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“The new platform removes the roadblocks that kept 401(k) participants from having access to ETFs,” said Jim Drury, CEO of BenefitStreet, in the press release. “Participants in 401(k) plans should have every investment opportunity open to them, and we believe it is the fiduciary responsibility of plan sponsors to ensure that choice.”

In May, BenefitStreet announced it would offer Barclays Global Investors’ iShares exchange-traded funds (ETFs) on the 401(k) platform (see BenefitStreet Offers Barclays’ iShares on New 401(k) Platform) and earlier this month, Reliance Trust Company was added as a custodian to the BenefitStreet ETF 401(k) solution (see Reliance Signs on as Custodian for BenefitStreet ETF 401(k) Platform).

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