As the number of participants in defined contribution plans continues to accelerate rapidly—and the assets in these plans balloon—the role of a financial advisor is now more important than ever.
Over the past 20 years, the assets in defined contribution plans have more than quadrupled and now sit at an estimated $10.4 trillion, according to the Investment Company Institute. These assets belong to more than 90 million participants, or roughly one-third of the U.S. population that is over the age of 21.
Incredibly, however, only a fraction of retirement plan participants are actually working directly with a financial advisor or are receiving some level of professional guidance on their retirement planning, savings and investments. And while there has been some progress in recent years to provide more advice to participants through their plans, it is nowhere near enough. Participants are still exposed to major saving, planning and investment risks—and the retirement security of millions will be at stake.
Fortunately, we see a clear opportunity to help bring the financial advice and retirement industries closer together. That is specifically why the Informa and WealthManagement.com team has partnered with The Retirement Advisor University, the premier retirement education and training organization in the country.
Our new partnership, announced earlier today, will connect key influencers from across the retirement plan advice industry with their counterparts in the wealth management industry.
TRAU, led by founder and CEO Fred Barstein, has educated thousands of retirement plan advisors and plan sponsors, and works directly with the most influential companies throughout the retirement ecosystem.
We share a common, ambitious goal with TRAU: To identify and put into action strategies that will improve outcomes for retirement plan advisors, plan sponsors—and ultimately plan participants.
To accomplish this, we have launched RPA Edge, a new omni-channel initiative that will educate our audience and industry about the emerging opportunities that are created by aligning wealth management and retirement plan advice.
Dedicated RPA Edge content, starting today, will be hosted in a new core section of WealthManagement.com and it will be distributed to our audience of over 600,000 financial professionals across the wealth management industry.
In addition to the launch of our new RPA Edge section, we are introducing a new RPA Edge newsletter and an RPA Edge podcast that will be hosted by Barstein, which will feature thought leaders from across the wealth and retirement landscapes, as well as his popular weekly video, 401(k) Real Talk, recapping the latest industry news.
We will also be hosting several RPA Edge Think Tanks in 2022 that will connect and empower key organizations in our industries: 401(k) aggregators, record-keepers, broker/dealers, CIOs asset managers and innovative fintech providers will be strategically connected, and the key findings from our RPA Edge Think Tanks will be captured and distributed to the WealthManagement.com audience.
To directly integrate and introduce the RPA industry into our core platform, the first RPA Edge Think Tank will be hosted during our largest and most important conference, Wealth Management Edge, which will take place May 31–June 3 in Hollywood, Fla. The RPA Edge Think Tanks will be aligned with Inside ETFs, WealthStack and RIA Edge under the Wealth Management Edge platform, with the CIO event virtually in December where the convergence of wealth and retirement will come to life.
The launch of RPA Edge and the partnership with TRAU and Barstein, we believe, will be transformational for WealthManagement.com, our audience—and ultimately an industry.
We are committed to helping advisors work more effectively with plan sponsors and plan participants in a way that moves your business forward and improves the financial lives of your clients. At its core, that’s the mission of RPA Edge.
As we introduce you to more RPA Edge content and events, we welcome feedback and suggestions from our community on ways to enhance this important initiative and amplify its impact. For more information about RPA Edge, please visit www.wealthmanagement.com/rpa-edge or contact me directly at [email protected] to discuss how you can become involved and support RPA Edge.
