Auto Portability in the News
Browse the most comprehensive collection of articles in the media that feature auto portability.
No One is Coming to Save You from Missing Participants
Writing in RCH's Consolidation Corner blog, Tom Hawkins provides his views on the dilemma facing plan sponsors who must confront the problem of locating missing plan participants. Despite ongoing efforts petitioning regulatory authorities for clear, bright line guidance, plan sponsors "must take decisive action to avoid being overwhelmed, including implementing effective, common-sense search practices, and pairing those search practices with other actions that will minimize the incidence of missing participants over time." Hawkins also urges plan sponsors to consider embracing retirement savings portability, including auto portability, to assist separated participants in consolidating their retirement savings following a job change.
Are Plan Sponsors Jumping on the Auto Portability Train?
In their recurring "Question of the Week" poll, the Plan Sponsor Council of America (PSCA) asks their plan sponsor readership about their intentions or actions concerning their plan's adoption of auto portability. In the informal poll, about 18% affirmed their desire to participate, while another 34.7% "needed to know more" and 11.6% were unsure. 20% indicated that their recordkeeper is not presently associated with the Portability Services Network (PSN), and only 14.7% responded that they have no plans to adopt the new feature. The results of this poll coincided with the 10/1/23 commencement of PSN operations, and represented a dramatic improvement over a 2021 poll, where 80% of respondents have never heard of auto portability.
5 Ways Employers Can Improve Retirement Readiness for Underserved Participants
PLANSPONSOR's Remy Samuels reviews new research from Alight Solutions, which outlines ways employers "can make retirement savings more accessible for workers from racial and ethnic minorities and the LGBTQ+ community, all of whom have historically fallen behind in saving for retirement." Recapping Alight's research, Samuels highlights five key ways plan sponsors can accomplish these goals, including facilitating auto portability, which advocates "working with recordkeepers in Retirement Clearinghouse’s Portability Services Network—a consortium of retirement plan service providers seeking to help workers transfer low account balances from one employer plan to the next."
Vanguard Says Sweeps, Auto Enrollment Still Key in Combatting Savings Gaps
PlanAdviser's Alex Ortolani reviews a new retirement research report released by The Vanguard Group, which finds "a daunting retirement readiness gap for lower-income workers that needs continued attention from the industry." Ortolani turns to Dave Stinnett, head of strategic retirement consulting at Vanguard, for his insights into the report's findings. To address the gap, Stinnett urges advisers and plan sponsors to adopt best practices for promoting retirement savings, including automated features. "Stinnett points to automatic portability as a way for workers to keep their savings in tax-deferred workplace plans when moving jobs" and notes the industry-led effort spearheaded by the Portability Services Network.
A Consortium's 1st 3 RKers Are Poised to Plug In, And ...
The 401kWire's Neal Anderson reports on the pending, 10/1/23 "go live" date for auto portability, as delivered by the Portability Services Network, when the "first two recordkeepers are poised to plug their platforms in to the technology." Anderson extensively quotes RCH and PSN president & CEO Spencer Williams, as well as Alight Solutions' Greg Long, head of public policy. In addition to providing his outlook on near-term adoption of the new feature, WIlliams notes that he is "constantly adding to the [RCH] team" to meet the network's future expansion plans, which he projects will accelerate in 2024 and beyond, adding: "[f]or us, the next three to five years will be almost uninterrupted expansion."
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Industry-led auto-portability network ready
Pensions & Investments Washington reporter Brian Croce covers the official October 2023 "go live" date for auto portability, via the industry-led Portability Services Network, and presents a uniformly positive view of the industry network, as well as the go-forward prospects for auto portability. Croce includes extensive quotes from key representatives of the consortium, including Fidelity's Dave Gray, Alight's Greg Long, Vanguard's Steve Holman, as well as RCH's Spencer Williams and Neal Ringquist. Croce also turns to industry voices, including PSCA's Executive Director Will Hansen and EBRI's Craig Copeland.
A ‘Slam Dunk’: 401(k) Auto-Portability Network Nears Live Date
PlanAdviser's Alex Ortolani covers the impending "live" date for auto portability, as delivered by the Portability Services Network, and turns to RCH's Spencer Williams and Neal Ringquist for their views. RCH has been working towards the debut "for about 10 years", writes Ortolani, which Williams refers to as "the long road, the hard road, and [we] have arrived at a spot that is, frankly, not only the best solution, but has promise of being even better.” RCH's Ringquist adds color on the cutover, speaking to the "staggered start" for recordkeepers and addressing the solid business case for moving small-balance accounts forward within the plan system.
Safeguarding Retirement Savings: Inside Secure Act 2.0 Key Priorities
BDO Alliance USA, among the industry’s largest associations of accounting and professional service firms, evaluates key priorities contained within recent SECURE 2.0 legislation, and includes an analysis of Section 120 of the act, which addresses auto portability. The piece notes that the auto portability "provision enhances portability by allowing the plan sponsor to now transfer the former employee’s default IRA assets (established at termination) into the participant’s new employer’s plan. The provision both curtails asset leakage from ERISA plans and helps alleviates the missing participant issue." The article also notes a related provision of the legislation -- Section 304 -- that increases the dollar limit for plan sponsors to automatically cash out a former employee’s retirement plan from $5,000 to $7,000, starting in 2024.
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