To address what it calls challenges of legacy recordkeepers running on outdated technology, Vestwell today announced significant upgrades to its proprietary recordkeeping platform designed for the small plan market. The upgrades enable five times more efficiency, the company says, compared to any traditional legacy recordkeeping platform.
Through a series of strategic enhancements, Vestwell’s technology solves some of the most complex challenges faced in the 40-year history of the retirement industry. The most common processes of a recordkeeping platform have been dramatically improved, establishing a better user experience for financial advisors, TPAs, asset managers, sponsors, and participants.
“Eighteen months ago, we set out to raise the bar, once again, creating a multi-custody, multi-savings program architecture, which could process traditional tasks at speed, scale, and efficiency levels never before attained in the industry. Today, we have delivered the infrastructure on which the workplace and individual savings programs will run over the next 20-plus years,” said Aaron Schumm, Founder and CEO of Vestwell. “To continuously solve these multi-layered, highly-complex industry challenges, we combined the expertise of our industry leaders and software engineers, who have been working on recordkeeping technology since our inception.”
Among the enhancements, Vestwell can now connect to any custodian while providing TPAs and financial advisors greater flexibility to run and scale their practices. The new architecture will also power each workplace and individual savings program Vestwell enables within a single, multi-custodial platform.
Payroll is at the forefront of the workplace savings industry, and processing any corrections that arise places a heavy administrative burden on small businesses and their limited resources. The latest enhancements rapidly process payroll corrections in real-time, as compared to the typical week-long industry norm.
“Our experience building out proprietary recordkeeping technology taught us that in the small plan market space, how you handle the ‘unhappy path’ makes all the difference,” said Jonathan Ferrara, SVP of Platform Strategy and Architecture at Vestwell. “Small businesses do not typically have a dedicated payroll person, which can result in more mistakes compared to larger businesses. We found that legacy solutions could not efficiently handle the frequency of these scenarios so we decided to reshape our own accounting tech stack to be more operationally efficient, deliver more value, and provide a superior experience to our client base.”
The recent platform upgrades also improve the saver experience. Savers who request to withdraw funds from their savings programs for financial hardship, a job change, or other reasons are now able to access their withdrawn funds in two business days instead of a week or more. Vestwell’s portal also provides savers with greater visibility into where their money is during each process step, so savers have a clear understanding of when they can expect their funds.
For the last two years, Vestwell has achieved three times client growth each year, placing the rising firm as a top business in Inc.’s Fastest Growing Companies in America.
SEE ALSO:
• Vestwell Launches Recordkeeping Product, Portal for 401k TPAs
• Vestwell CEO Aaron Schumm on Who Owns the Participant and What’s Next for Recordkeeping
• Cerulli Sees Increased Recordkeeper, Advisor ‘Coopetition’
Veteran financial services industry journalist Brian Anderson joined 401(k) Specialist as Managing Editor in January 2019. He has led editorial content for a variety of well-known properties including Insurance Forums, Life Insurance Selling, National Underwriter Life & Health, and Senior Market Advisor. He has always maintained a focus on providing readers with timely, useful information intended to help them build their business.
