Retirement benefits

Bank of America Merrill Lynch said that it saw increased 401(k) savings through its plan sponsors both in the fourth quarter and 2011 year, signaling a positive outlook for the tweaks it has made to its offerings and confidence in the overall economy.

The U.S. Labor Department has removed a controversial part of its proposed 401(k) fee disclosure rule that would have required retirement plan providers to create a summary document, or "roadmap," of all their fees for employers.

Schwab Retirement Plan Services already serves 1.5 million workers saving for retirement, but hopes that its new Schwab Index Advantage service will increase participation even more by demystifying the 401(K) saving process.

Total retirement assets were $17.0 trillion as of Sept. 30, down 7.5% from a record high of $18.4 trillion as of June 30, the Investment Company Institute said Wednesday, attributing most of the decline to the 13.9% decline in the S&P 500 Index in the third quarter. Assets might have declined even further were it not for automatic contributions to 401(k)s, the ICI said.

After a decade marked by two severe bear markets, 401(k) investors have adopted a more balanced approach to their portfolios, according to a report released Wednesday by the Investment Company Institute and the Employee Benefit Research Institute.

The 11th quarterly Allstate-National Journal Heartland Monitor Poll found that near-retiree Baby Boomers have pushed back initial plans to retire at age 60, to 66. Additionally, 68% of Baby Boomers expect to work in some form after retirement, the survey of 1,200 Americans found. Only 11% of current retirees currently work.

Despite the historic equity market decline of 2008-2009, most 401(k) participants earned positive investment returns in the five-year period ended 2010, according to Vanguard. In fact, the average return was 3.76% a year, not including the impact of continued contributions.

The new Department of Labor 401(k) fee disclosure rules that go into effect on April 1 will radically shake up the industry, according to Tom Gonnella, senior vice president of corporate development at Lincoln Trust, who gave six predictions for the defined contribution industry in 2102.

Walmart, the world’s largest private employer, and Merrill Lynch, without admitting to wrongdoing, have agreed to pay $13.5 million in a class-action lawsuit accusing them of breaching their fiduciary duty to two million past and present Walmart workers. The suit was settled in Kansas City federal court.

Forty-six percent of Americans surveyed by Fidelity Investments cite saving more as their No. 1 financial resolution for 2012, and among this group, the median savings target is $2,400, up from $1,200 last year.

Since the financial crisis and Great Recession, 401(k) plans have undergone dramatic shifts. To foster diversification and greater participation, 51% of participants in Fidelity Investments' 401(k) plans are in automatically enrolled plans, up from 16% five years ago, and 73% of the plans use target-date funds as the default, up from 11% in 2006. In the past year, 64% of sponsors changed their investment lineup-up dramatically from 20% in 2008.

Since the financial crisis and Great Recession, 401(k) plans have undergone dramatic shifts. To foster diversification and greater participation, 51% of participants in Fidelity Investments' 401(k) plans are in automatically enrolled plans, up from 16% five years ago, and 73% of the plans use target-date funds as the default, up from 11% in 2006.

The Pension Protection Act of 2006 is having a positive effect on 401(k) plans, Fidelity Investments said Wednesday.

Nearly two-thirds, 63.8%, of plan sponsors have changed the investment lineup in their 401(k) plan in the past year, up markedly from a mere 20% in 2008, according to the Profit Sharing/401(k) Council of America.

Mercer has launched a new blog for employers that it hopes will be thought-provoking. M/THINK also includes data-rich infographics and commentaries on key business issues facing today’s employers.

Retirement plan advisers’ top five concerns include new disclosure rules, market volatility, finding greater flexibility and customization in plans, measuring a given plan’s success and an expected redefinition of fiduciary status. Those are the results from a national listening tour conducted by Transamerica Retirement Services.

Only 4% of plan sponsors have established goals to engage workers younger than 35 in their defined contribution plans, even though they know the younger generation's participation and contribution rates lag their older colleagues, a survey by Greenwich Associates for Northern Trust finds.

J.P. Morgan Asset Management is proposed a fundamentally different approach to defined contribution plans by stripping down offerings a complexities to a menu of just three choices: a diversified stock portfolio, a diversified bond portfolio and one offering diversified cash alternatives.

Retirement plan administrators and advisers take note: It’s not a company’s size but rather the demographic makeup of its workforce that influences whether it sponsors a retirement plan.

Three-quarters of 260 employers that suspended 401(k) matches due to the recession have restored them, Towers Watson said in a report Wednesday. Of these companies, 74% have brought these matches back to the levels they were before the recession, and only 23% have brought them back at a lower level.