Sponsor Bulletin Board
January 14, 2009
Upgrade your plan with online enrollment
Is your plan still using paper-based enrollment? BPA is pleased to announce two new solutions for online enrollment – offered at no cost to clients. Online enrollment can reduce the plan sponsor’s workload while eliminating many hidden liabilities lurking in enrollment forms. For full details on this program, please click here.
December 31, 2008
BPA moves to eliminate ACH fax
In response to plan sponsor requests, BPA has begun a project to eliminate the ACH fax in both directions using an electronic communication mechanism delivered through CensusPro. For complete details on this project which will unfold in early 2009, please click here.
Introducing the Plan Sponsor Newsletter Library
In the area of qualified retirement plans, laws and regulations are constantly changing. To keep our clients apprised of recent developments, BPA is pleased to launch the Plan Sponsor Newsletter Library.
The library contains a rolling archive of plan sponsor newsletters, focused on emerging trends in the retirement plan arena. Recent newsletter topics include new safe harbor options for 2009, information on the DOL’s new “seven day safe harbor” governing deposits for plans with less than 100 employees, a summary of new fee disclosure regulations, and other topics. BPA has licensed this newsletter from Newkirk Products, Inc. (NPI) and McKay Hochman – one of the industry-leading authorities on ERISA and qualified plans. We are pleased to make this service available to our clients at no cost. For important caveats regarding use of these newsletters, please visit the Plan Sponsor Newsletter Library.
To visit the library, please access the plan sponsor website (or financial intermediary website) and view the “BPA News” tab. The library can be found as the first link on the navigation strip. It can also be found at http://www.bpah.com/library/.
We hope this new service is helpful to our clients. As always, please call your BPA Plan Consultant with any questions you may have.
New Loan Request Process
Effective June 17th, 2008, BPAH is pleased to announce a new feature to further automate the loan request process for plans that offer traditional loans. As before, participants will be able to perform loan availability and modeling within the participant website where the Plan permits. However, the loan paperwork will now be available directly in the participant website, where it can be printed, completed, signed and faxed back to BPAH for processing.
How it works:
The participant models a loan by going to the “Request Changes” tab and choosing “Loan Modeling” on the left navigational strip (no change).
The loan choices available in the plan will be displayed, including the ability to print the form, or have it mailed if a printer is not available to the participant.
Once the terms of the loan modeling are satisfactory, the participant may choose “Submit Loan Forms Request”.
The application and amortization schedule will be generated and posted to the “Mail Tab” of the website in a PDF file within minutes.
The entire application can then be printed, completed, signed, and faxed or mailed to BPA for processing.
Additional notes:
If participants do not have a printer available, they can access the website later from another computer that has a printer, and print the paperwork from the Mail Tab.
If participants do not have internet access, our current process will still apply: a participant would call the automated Voice Response Unit (VRU), or our CSR team to request loan paperwork and have it mailed to their home address.
If participants need assistance from HR to initiate a loan request, the same steps can be completed by HR through the plan sponsor website. (This will be particularly helpful in loan requests where a “time crunch” is involved).
For a sample of what the new dynamic forms package looks like, please click the following links: Sample Loan Application and Sample Amortization Schedule.
By making the loan paperwork available immediately and eliminating mailing time (potentially in two directions), this should reduce loan turnaround time significantly. We hope you find the new feature helpful. We look forward to expanding this functionality to other types of withdrawal requests in the future. Please continue to check the Participant and Plan Sponsor Bulletin Boards for announcements as additional product enhancements are made.
New report: The Participant Investment Grid
In response to client requests, BPAH is pleased to roll out an additional report in the plan sponsor website. The Participant Investment Grid can be found in the Utilization Tab of the site. This report gives clients an actionable table of data covering the investment allocation of plan participants.
This Excel (.CSV) file includes the following data points:
Since the report is provided in an Excel format, it can easily be sorted in a variety of ways. This can allow the user to answer a variety of questions on investments, such as “Who are the largest holders of the ABC Fund?”, or “Which participants are invested in the XYX Fund?”. If special mailings or other communications are being contemplated (such as a memo to participants invested in a particular fund), this report will make it easy to do so.
Along with other .CSV files contained in the site, this report will be updated each weekend by BPAH. We hope you find this a valuable addition to the plan sponsor site.
AIM Fund CUSIP Changes and Fund Name Changes.
AIM has announced cusip and fund name changes , that will take effect on April 30, 2008 and May 1, 2008 as outlined here. Select the links below for details.
If you have any questions, please contact Invesco Aim Dealer Services at 800-949-4246.
Guided Tour of The Plan Sponsor Website
BPAH is pleased to launch our guided tour of the plan sponsor website. This multimedia presentation is deployed through Brainshark™. The voice-narrated presentation showcases the many features of the site while educating plan sponsors on our daily administrative environment. It also includes a number of helpful tips to optimize the plan sponsor’s retirement plan experience. The presentation will be valuable for new plans as they convert to BPAH, and as a “refresher course” for existing clients on all the features of the site.
To view the presentation, please visit the following link:
http://www.brainshark.com/communitybankna/PlanSponsorSiteDemo
Attached is a plan sponsor website map which will be useful as you view the presentation. This website map and the link to the multimedia presentation will also appear in the “BPA News” tab of the plan sponsor website.
After viewing the presentation, please call your BPAH Plan Consultant with any additional questions. We hope that this new resource will help clients get the most value from their plan sponsor website!
Dreyfus has made the following announcements regarding mergers of the below mentioned funds.
Effective April 25, 2008 the Dreyfus Premier Managed Income fund will merge into the Dreyfus Intermediate Term Income Fund. Upon the merger on April 25, 2008, the Intermediate Term Income Fund will change its name to Dreyfus Premier Intermediate Term Income Fund.
Also effective April 25, 2008, the Dreyfus Founders Balanced Fund, will be merging into the DreyfusLifeTime Growth and Income Fund.
Important notice: Excelsior Funds becoming Columbia Funds
During 2007, the Excelsior family of funds was acquired by Columbia Funds. As of 3/28/2008, the Excelsior Funds will undergo a name change from “Excelsior” to “Columbia”. Ticker symbols for these funds will remain the same, but fund CUSIPs are changing, and certain share class names will be modified as well. Of particular note in the BPAH platform is Excelsior Value & Restructuring (ticker symbol UMBIX). This fund will be renamed as the Columbia Value & Restructuring Fund, using the same ticker symbol. Note that the 60 day trading restriction that existed with UMBIX (and many other Excelsior Funds, with the exception of certain international funds) will be removed once this transfer is effective.
For additional information on this fund action, please visit http://www.columbiafunds.com/Excelsior.htm
This name change will not present any blackout period or other disruption for plan participants.