Products April 26, 2011

Brightscope Turns its Attention to Advisers

April 26, 2011 (PLANSPONSOR.com) – Retirement plan rater BrightScope has now turned its attention to financial advisers. 

 

Reported by

The San Diego-based firm today announced the launch of BrightScope Advisor Pages, which it calls a “breakthrough way for people to discover, research, and select a financial advisor”.    

According to a press release, BrightScope obtains its data for the free, searchable database “directly from publicly available sources, including required regulatory filings from the Securities Exchange Commission”.  The firm notes that financial advisers can “augment” these primary sources by claiming their BrightScope Advisor Page. 

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 “Never before has it been possible to learn so much about a single advisor,” said BrightScope CEO, Mike Alfred, in a press release. “Firm websites and LinkedIn pages don’t tell you the things you need to know to make aninformed decision, and the amount of time it would take the average person to obtain the information, involving an immense amount of various public records and sources, is endless.” 

Brightscope says that the aggregated, information covers “everything someone needs to make an informed decision”, including location, qualifications, amount and types of assets under management, area of specialty, legal disputes, formal complaints and more. 

Read PLANADVISER’s interview with Mike Alfred at http://www.planadviser.com/BrightScope_Rolls_Out_Adviser_Database.aspx

More information about BrightScope Advisor Pages is available at http://www.brightscope.com/financial-planning/find/advisor. 

Benefits April 26, 2011

Study Finds DC Plans May Have a Role in Public Sector

April 26, 2011 (PLANSPONSOR.com) – A new study concludes that defined contribution plans may well have a role in the public sector, but in combination with, not as an alternative to, defined benefit plans.
Reported by

After looking at the hybrid plans introduced in Georgia, Michigan, and Utah, researchers for the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College concluded that hybrids consisting of slimmed-down defined benefit plans and defined contribution plans operating in parallel reflect sponsors’ recognition of the need to balance the risks to employees and the risks to taxpayers.   

The CRR contends that a preferable approach may be a “stacked” arrangement, in which meaningful defined benefit plans could remain as a secure base for the typical public employee, and defined contribution plans could be “stacked” on top to provide additional retirement income for those at the higher end of the pay scale.   

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“Such an approach would ensure a more equitable sharing of risks and would also prevent headlines generated by the occasional inflated public pension benefit,” the researchers concluded.  

The study report can be accessed at http://crr.bc.edu/briefs/a_role_for_defined_contribution_plans_in_the_public_sector.html.

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