Bank of America's recent Workplace Benefits Report reveals that the two key areas where employees need financial wellness resources are: retirement education and planning, and learning how to generate income in retirement.
From 17 November, Bank of America clients enrolled in their employer-sponsored Personal Retirement Strategy programme will be able to convert 401k assets into a retirement income. This will be at no charge to the company's corporate plan sponsor or plan participant clients.
The new digital solution will provide 401k recordkeeping and bring full financial lives into context with personalised inputs, cost-of-living adjustments, state and federal taxes, and required minimum distributions.
Alongside this, deposit options will be offered to provide flexibility of payments and choice of deposit accounts, within or outside of Bank of America.
Real-time recalibration will also support ongoing income monitoring and tracking for the duration of a participant's retirement, allowing them to adjust income as needs and goals change.
Bank of America's Personal Retirement Strategy is an existing online investment advisory programme that uses a probabilistic approach to determine how likely participants will accumulate sufficient total assets to achieve their annual retirement income goal.
However, beyond the Personal Retirement Strategy programme, 401k Pay has been developed to address the concerns of both the employers and employees.
Lorna Sabbia, head of workplace benefits, Bank of America, says: "401k Pay was developed hand-in-hand with our corporate clients who wanted to offer their employees a retirement income solution. Including retirement income resources like 401k Pay as part of their workplace benefits offerings provides employers with the opportunity to improve financial outcomes for their employees and can help drive real business results – including helping to improve productivity, employee job satisfaction and retention.”
Tom Matarazzo, managing director, institutional retirement advisory programs and financial wellness solutions, add: "Retirement readiness and the ability to plan for income in retirement are top concerns among plan participants. 401k Pay is designed to help directly address participant concerns – from planning how much 401(k) income is needed in retirement to drawing on those funds appropriately – with a digital solution that is a leader in the marketplace."