Product & Service Launches

T. Rowe Price Partners with Ascensus 529 Business

T. Rowe Price announced a partnership with Ascensus to support its 529 business and reinforce its commitment to enhancing education savings for account owners. T. Rowe will continue to serve as the investment and program manager for its four highly successful state-sponsored 529 plans, while Ascensus will provide recordkeeping and account servicing for the plans.

Ascensus is the largest recordkeeper and third-party administrator of state-sponsored education savings programs in the U.S., according to a press release, serving 6.5 million 529 plan savers and more than $200 billion in assets under management.

This partnership will provide 529 account owners with an improved online platform and mobile experience as well as “strong investment management” that is aimed at keeping their personal information safe.

Some of these benefits include:

• A mobile app that will allow account owners to manage their account anywhere
• An enhanced gifting platform that allows others, such as grandparents, to contribute to an account, as well as improved gift tracking capabilities
• The ability to send electronic payments directly to more than 800 educational institutions

There are more than 675,000 account owners saving for education through the four programs managed by T. Rowe Price.

Pontera Partners with Stifel to Help 401(k) Participants Achieve Retirement Goals

Fintech company Pontera, which helps savers receive professional 401(k) management from a trusted financial adviser, announced a partnership with Stifel Financial Corp., a full-service brokerage and investment banking firm operating across the U.S. and abroad.

With this collaboration, more than 2,400 Stifel advisers will be able to securely manage 401(k)s for more than 200,000 clients through the Pontera platform as part of a personalized, comprehensive wealth management plan, according to a press release.

“When clients turn to their advisor for investment advice, they’re looking for help managing all of their assets — not just some,” stated Ron Kruszewski, chairman and chief executive of Stifel. “We’re thrilled to collaborate with Pontera and help our advisors answer this call for help by giving them tools to securely and efficiently manage their clients’ workplace retirement accounts.”

Kruszewski noted that the platform will be integrated with the adviser-driven tech stack, Addepar, that Stifel uses, for holistic performance reporting, as well as Salesforce CRM for streamlined client-account visibility and Stifel’s WealthTracker solution.

MassMutual Offers CAIS Alternative Investment Platform to Advisers

To expand access to alternative offerings and make investment processes “even more robust and streamlined,” MassMutual has made the CAIS alternative investment platform available to advisers affiliated with MML Investors Services—an independent broker/dealer and investment adviser subsidiary of MassMutual.

“Alternative investment offerings are more important than ever for advisors and their clients,” said Vaughn Bowman, head of wealth management with MassMutual. “By teaming up with industry leaders like CAIS, we are providing more options for advisors to offer clients differentiated investments to complement their traditional portfolios.”

The CAIS platform provides a broad selection of alternative investment strategies spanning hedge funds, private equity, private debt, real estate, infrastructure and structured notes. Integrations with leading custodians and reporting providers will also be available, which help automate and streamline the reporting and document workflow process.