Break from the Grind December 3, 2019

Even Big Tech Employees Don’t Trust Big Tech With Finances

Only 22% of Facebook employees said Facebook is the tech giant with which they are most willing to share financial data.

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Jo Ann Barefoot, a former deputy U.S. Comptroller of the Currency and founder of the nonprofit Alliance for Innovative Regulation, has said, “The future of the financial system is going to be a mix of banks and non-banks. So the integration of banks and tech companies seems inevitable.”

It’s true that several big tech companies have moved to get into the financial or banking business. Apple Card, Facebook Pay and Google checking are some examples.

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But, a survey finds big tech companies don’t have the trust that traditional banks do. Among 4,032 professionals surveyed by Blind Workplace Insights, 62% think that traditional banks are more trustworthy with their financial data than big tech. Even more interesting, nearly six in 10 tech employees (57%) trust traditional banks over tech companies.

Asked which tech giant—Google, Amazon, Uber, Apple or Facebook—they would be most willing to share their financial data with, 44% of respondents overall chose Apple, 34% chose Google and 17% selected Amazon. Only 2% each chose Facebook and Uber.

Blind was able to find out the trust employees of these big tech companies have in their own employers, too. The result followed the trend of the overall survey respondents. Ninety-one percent of Apple employees said Apple is the tech giant with which they are most willing to share financial data, and 78% of Google employees chose Google.

Less than half (47%) of Amazon employees said Amazon is the tech giant with which they are most willing to share financial data, while only 22% of Facebook employees and 17% of Uber employees selected their own employers.

Ask the Experts December 3, 2019

Improving Readability of Participant Fee Disclosures

Experts from Groom Law Group and Cammack Retirement Group answer questions concerning retirement plan administration and regulations.

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“I work in HR at an Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) 403(b) plan sponsor. I realize that we have to provide an annual fee disclosure to participants, but in reading it, it is so boring! As a HR communications specialist, it is just not the type of communication I think our participants will actually read! Isn’t there anything we can do to ‘spice it up’ a bit and improve its readability?”

Stacey Bradford, Kimberly Boberg, David Levine and David Powell, with Groom Law Group, and Michael A. Webb, vice president, Retirement Plan Services, Cammack Retirement Group, answer:

Actually the Department of Labor’s Model Chart for participant fee disclosure is not bad as far as required disclosures go—it is much more readable than, say, a Summary Annual Report—but its length, which can exceed 10 pages depending on the number of investment options offered, is indeed likely to discourage many participants from reading it.

However, there is nothing in the final rule for participant fee disclosures that would prevent a plan sponsor from augmenting the communication by including, for example, a simple explanation of the plan fees (e.g., dollar amount of recordkeeping and other administrative fees, dollar amount of investment fees, etc.) in the mailing that perhaps, might grab the attention of plan participants, especially if it is limited to a single page and is written in language designed to engage the participant.

Furthermore, once the proposed regulations regarding electronic disclosures are finalized, there could be an opportunity for plan sponsors to provide an even greater degree of customized fee disclosure to participants, as they will not need to worry about additional mailing costs associated with enhancing the required participant fee disclosures. Plan sponsors might even be able to take advantage of current technology to provide participants with a state-of-the-art, personalized fee disclosure experience!

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NOTE: This feature is to provide general information only, does not constitute legal advice, and cannot be used or substituted for legal or tax advice.

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