Practice

The Hartford Financial Services Group has created a new division called Hartford Life Distributors in which all sales and marketing for both investment and retirement products will be handled. This includes all strategic relationship management and business development for mutual fund, annuities, 401(k) plans and 529s.

Wholesale changes are in store for both pension and 401(k) plans, according to a survey of 140 financial executives by Prudential Financial and CFO Research Services.

Putnam Investments has unveiled the industry’s first absolute-return target-date funds, which will combine both conventional investing strategies with absolute-return methods that seek to mitigate market volatility.

The Treasury Department has proposed several improvements for Section 529 college savings plans, including the use of age-based index funds and the elimination of home-state biases.

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Florida - Mutual fund boards are grappling with their increasingly expanding roles as risk overseers, management coaches and shareholder advocates as the Securities and Exchange Commission continues to add new rules and raise its expectations, including the creation last week of the Division of Risk, Strategy and Financial Innovation.

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Florida - With the one-year anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers finally in the rearview mirror and the economy on the way to recovery, many participants in the financial services industry are questioning whether the industry still needs to undergo substantial regulatory change, and what changes, if any, could be beneficial at this point.

The Department of Labor is dropping a rule proposed during the final days of the Bush administration that would have allowed 401(k) providers to offer advice to investors even if it involved a plan in which its own funds were sold.

Fifty-one percent of younger adults are thinking more seriously about retirement planning after watching the recession’s impact on their parents, Country Financial found in a survey. Evidently, these investors believe it is critical to stay on top of their finances and retirement savings, since 71% said they expect to experience a second similar recession by the time they reach their parents’ age, and 60% believe their financial situation will be the same or worse in retirement as their parents.

John Hancock Retirement Plan Services has formed a distribution partnership with Edward Jones that makes Hancock’s 401(k) platform, complete with the Guaranteed Income For Life feature, available to the brokerage’s 12,000 financial advisers.

With the collapse of Lehman Brothers a year in the past and the economy on the road to recovery, many participants in the financial services industry are questioning whether the industry still needs to undergo substantial regulatory change, and what changes, if any, could be beneficial at this point.