Products February 4, 2011

TD Ameritrade Offers Professional Development Tools for RIAs

TD Ameritrade Institutional is launching TD Ameritrade Advisor Education, a customizable learning management system for independent registered investment advisers (RIAs). 
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The learning management system is designed to help advisers enhance their expertise and develop the skills of employees, the company said.   

Advisor Education will allow advisers and their employees to access educational tracks in the areas of investment and planning strategies, practice management, technology, and operations. Advisers can track staff learning activities, participation and progress. In addition to expanded education resources and tools, advisers will have access to TD Ameritrade Institutional Solutions Consultants, who can assist in the development of human capital strategies.

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Spearheading the program will be Tess Kristensen, named Dean of Advisor Education by TD Ameritrade Institutional.

“Advisers need continued education to maintain credibility and add value for their clients. However, advisers are often paralyzed by disparate offerings and have difficulty assessing the quality of programs,” said Kristensen. “By bringing best-in-class courses, tools and content all together in one place, and by leveraging our internal expertise developing human capital for our advisers’ benefit,  TD Ameritrade Institutional demonstrates a commitment to helping RIAs.”

Kristensen will be responsible for the educational content available on the Advisor Education platform. Content can be searched through an online catalog and be accessed through a variety of channels including computer-based training, whitepapers, Webcasts, and seminars. The resource center will be made available this quarter and is intended to continually evolve, with its future growth driven by advisers’ needs, according to the company.

 

Compliance February 3, 2011

HELP Panel Hears Support for Auto Features, Education

Witnesses appearing before the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Thursday told lawmakers that while the retirement income sufficiency issue in the U.S. is a difficult one, there are “fixes” to consider.
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The witnesses were appearing during a HELP Committee hearing on how Americans can be encouraged and helped to save enough for their retirement years.

Several applauded the impacts of auto-plan features (particularly enrollment and escalation), but Lori Lucas, Executive Vice President, Callan Associates, who appeared on behalf of the Defined Contribution Institutional Investment Association, told the panel that sponsors need to be encouraged to be more aggressive in setting auto plan default savings and escalation rates. For example, Lucas suggested that auto enrollment deferral could start at 6% immediately, rather than beginning at 3% and moving gradually to 6%. More effective education will help to hold down opt-out rates, Lucas asserted.

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“The good news is that much can be done from a plan sponsor, policymaker and provider perspective to facilitate positive outcomes within the context of the existing framework of automatic enrollment and automatic contribution escalation,” Lucas testified. “Thoughtful plan design and communication can materially alter the long-term savings levels of millions of Americans. In contrast, the alternative—plan design and communication that do not consider long-term income replacement ramifications—may have painful long-term social and economic consequences when it comes to American’s retirement security.

Julie Agnew, Associate Professor of Finance and Economics and Co-Director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Behavioral Finance Research (CIBFR) Mason School of Business, The College of William and Mary, also called for a strengthening of ongoing financial education efforts.

“I also believe that more needs to be done to better integrate financial education into the daily lives of Americans starting at an early age and at points where important financial decisions are being made,” Agnew said. “Financial experts should be used to make sure that the correct lessons are being taught and marketing experts should be involved so that people actually listen and are engaged in the message. We also must test to make sure these methods are effective, because we have too many examples today of programs that do not work.”

Finally, Jeffrey R. Brown, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign College of Business, proposed the notion of auto-annuitization, but admitted the concept still needed further study.

“To put it simply, in addition to thinking about the “glide path” for the allocation between stocks and bonds (and other asset classes), I would like to see products which also automate the “glide path” between annuitized and non-annuitized assets,” Brown testified, according to his remarks. “The gradual, and partial, annuitization of accounts would be a very natural and very welcome evolution of these plans. I am not suggesting that such an approach be mandated. Rather, I would like to see such an approach encouraged – or at least not discouraged – through the regulatory framework. Providing plan sponsors with clear fiduciary safe harbors for providing such products is one important consideration.”

More information on the hearing is at http://help.senate.gov/hearings/hearing/?id=c8c1c5c7-5056-9502-5dd5-8b9f87d76457.

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