Clients are often subjected to fundamental issues while doing business that is impacted by or rather driven by bad investment returns, fiduciary obligations, regulations, and so on. As such, business entities oftentimes look for a service provider they can partner with that can offer effective solutions in an environment that is essentially risk-controlled.
As such, this client of J.P. Morgan was looking for a solution that would offer control and flexibility aside from technological infrastructure that enabled JPMorgan’s client to introduce “a custom target-date fund structure” that would gel with their retirement plan effectively and affordably.
Who is JP Morgan’s Client?
The client is a well-known financial services company that sought assistance from JP Morgan intending to enhance their well-defined contribution/401(k) offerings. This client in question already had in place a mature and large benefit plan alongside a well-defined and rapidly growing contribution plan.
What did the Client Need from JP Morgan?
They had an agenda that can be rightly called “aggressive”. And the investment committee was looking forward to a partner that could continuously assess the prevailing plan options of the company and seek better options that would be beneficial. Adding an auto-enrollment feature was also on their agenda. Simplifying their portfolio lineup was the other requirement of this client. So, it was aiming at extending target-date funds.
It is also natural to bear fiduciary obligations for a pension sponsor to make sure that the needs of the participants are addressed and taken care of.
What Made the Client Approach JP Morgan?
The client of JP Morgan received feedback from their plan participants that the investment decision-making procedure was not easy to understand. Also, despite the presence and application of several educational tools, the employees found it difficult to operate, and for them making asset allocation choices proved to be cumbersome.
Many employees were not registering or enrolling for the retirement plans. So, to address the issues an auto-enrollment specification had to be implemented as well. So, to see to the best interest of the plan participants, this client of JP Morgan had lined up the following investment priorities.
- Access and Diversification to asset classes
- Cost efficiency
- Open architecture
- A solution so that the implementation and administration could be easier
What was the Solution Offered by JP Morgan?
This client approached CARSSM or JP Morgan Cash Allocation and Rebalancing Solution so that the new target date funding could be managed and serviced. JP Morgan CARS were able to address the issues of the client as –
- It offers scalable support for various fund structures like target-date funds that are highly flexible.
- It offers services related to the target date funds thereby enabling its client to introduce an excellent glide path suitable for any type of configuration of fund types.
- It enables the plan participants to create and deliver fund structures particularly the ones that are of open architecture.
About JP Morgan
One of the main components that make JP Morgan stable is its financial stability. It has helped in retaining the competitiveness of the company and its commitments towards pension plans. The company builds on its global potentialities and financial strength that allows it to support its clients’ end-to-end requirements that also facilitates its efforts to integrate and streamline the services it offers. These are also the reasons why its clients are assured of security and assurance while operating their businesses.
Ranging from “line item” accounting and calculations for mutual funds as well as collective trust funds, JP Morgan through its daily valuations and management of separate accounts can strategically commit itself to the full spectrum of services.
