We all know how difficult the onboarding process can be (any onboarding process) and is key to making or breaking a relationship, whether it’s with a partner, product, client, or all of the above.
“As interest in CITs continues to surge in employer-sponsored retirement plans, we see a prime opportunity to streamline the use of these investment vehicles …”
In mid-September, Wilmington Trust announced the launch of BoardingPass, a digital solution that automates and simplifies the onboarding process for collective investment trusts (CITs).
“BoardingPass is a technology application that digitizes the retirement plan onboarding process and creates a simplified experience for plan sponsors, advisors and recordkeepers to effectively manage their participation agreements and make CITs more accessible and transparent to more members of the U.S. workforce,” according to the company.
BoardingPass features include:
A new onboarding process to reduce mistakes and save time
BoardingPass acts as a central hub for all plan information. It empowers users to quickly complete work that traditionally required time-consuming interactions. Instead of having to manage paperwork that can be prone to mistakes and require an average of one to five business days to submit, the app provides a secure, web-based digital platform to perform critical tasks and reduce the timeline by up to 80%.
Advanced automation for plan advisors
The tool automatically pulls key retirement plan data from thousands of plans in the IRS Form 5500 database and prepopulates the correct form fields to ensure accuracy. It also prepopulates any special share classes or specialty accounts relevant to a plan. This enables the advisor to focus more quickly on CIT fund selection. Fund requests can be sent in real-time to recordkeepers and plan sponsors.
Efficient organization and communication between recordkeepers and stakeholders
Recordkeepers can sort and filter fund requests by all pertinent variables, including fund name, family, CUSIP, and others. The tool also streamlines the information collection process by automatically flagging missing or inaccurate data. The recordkeeper then can quickly alert the advisor to address any issues in the tool instead of waiting days or weeks for documents to pass between parties.
Plan sponsors gain access to real-time, critical information
Plan sponsors also gain the benefit of real-time information sharing and a digital connection to critical service providers. They can sort and monitor all fund requests pending approval and sort by plan name, recordkeeper or even advisor name. They can view all fund requests that need action (e.g., missing signature) and quickly address them.
“We are thrilled to officially launch our BoardingPass solution, which will revolutionize the way the retirement industry onboards CITs in employer-sponsored retirement plans,” said Rob Barnett, Institutional Business Line Leader for Retirement and Institutional Custody Services at Wilmington Trust. “As interest in CITs continues to surge in employer-sponsored retirement plans, we see a prime opportunity to streamline the use of these investment vehicles and to provide greater access to them for plan sponsors, advisors, recordkeepers, and participants.”
BoardingPass is now available for a segment of Wilmington Trust clients and will be rolled out broadly in October.
With more than 20 years serving financial markets, John Sullivan is the former editor-in-chief of Investment Advisor magazine and retirement editor of ThinkAdvisor.com. Sullivan is also the former editor of Boomer Market Advisor and Bank Advisor magazines, and has a background in the insurance and investment industries in addition to his journalism roots.
