Simplifying—and Selling—Stable Value
It’s hard to maximize sales and market share when consumers don’t fully understand or appreciate your brand— Imagine that automobile buyers didn’t know that Ferraris are fast, that Jeeps are designed to take on rugged terrain or that a Lexus is likely to deliver above-average reliability. This is something anyone in the stable value business […]
The Rise of Robo Advisors
In the nearly two decades since their debut, online investment advisory services have enjoyed modest success in convincing some investors to use them. Now they’ve got a sexy new name—“robo advisors”—and with it perhaps an improved chance of winning customers. Much has changed since industry pioneers like mPower and Financial Engines starting providing online investment […]
Looking Back and Moving Forward
By Jim King, Prudential, SVIA Chairman As 2015 draws to a close, so does my tenure as Chairman of the Board of the Stable Value Investment Association. It’s been an eventful and exciting six years for me serving on the Board and for the stable value industry as a whole. As I sat down […]
Making Government Work: A Former Congressman’s Plan to Revive American Democracy
To watch American elections is to watch democracy in action. Or maybe not. As former U.S. Congressman Mickey Edwards sees it, the United States has devolved to a point where the most extreme members of the two major political parties—not the public at large—control who can get elected. That’s not democracy, he argues, and he […]
Policy Maker Outlines Ideas for Improving Retirement Savings Plans
The modern defined contribution retirement savings plan—what most people today know as a 401(k)—is now three decades old. Its close cousins, 457 and 403(b) plans, have been around even longer. We’re still trying to get them right. The problem? While Americans held approximately $6.8 trillion in defined contribution plans at year-end 2014, according to the […]
Stable Times Volume 19 Issue 2
Download PDF The biannual publication of the Stable Value Investment Association that covers both industry concerns and association activities. Table of contents: Looking Back and Moving Forward Policy Maker Outlines Ideas for Improving Retirement Savings Plans Consumer Interest Groups Back Proposed New Fiduciary Standards Millennials’ Financial Outlook Better than Advertised—At Least for Some Fixed-Income Managers […]
Consumer Interest Groups Back Proposed New Fiduciary Standards
Proposed new fiduciary rules from the U.S. Department of Labor have drawn mixed reviews from the retirement industry, but consumer watchdog groups are fans. In April 2015, the DOL proposed expanding the definition of a fiduciary to effectively require anyone offering advice on or managing retirement accounts to act in the best interests of their […]
Millennials’ Financial Outlook Better than Advertised—At Least for Some
Conventional wisdom holds that young adults today face a dimmer financial future than their parents and grandparents. It’s a sentiment exacerbated, certainly, by the financial crisis of 2008, the great recession that accompanied it, and the slow pace of economic recovery since then. In a recent survey by the Pew Research Center, the vast majority […]
Stable Value: Overlooked Solution to Generating Retirement Income
Figuring out how best to convert retirement savings to a lifetime of retirement income has become the new holy grail of the retirement industry. Not coincidentally, it’s also of vital interest to the tens of millions of baby boomers who have retired over the past few years or will likely do so in the next […]