The Wall Street Journal recommends Pension Systems Corporation's unique "self-service" 401(k) design as an easy-to-use, inexpensive solution for small businesses that want to offer employees a 401(k) plan. The WSJ article compared this 401(k) for small businesses to Quicken as an affordable and easy-to-use accounting and invoicing solution for small businesses. To view the WSJ article and press release, please click here.
Pension Systems Corporation holds the United States Patent 6041313 for its highly regarded self-service 401(k) technology. The invention specialized in 401(k) plans for small businesses. PSC's patent re-configured the traditional 401(k) administration process. In the conventional 401(k) plan administration model, a company's 401(k) assets are all co-mingled and pooled together, and the conventional 401(k) administrator tracks each participant's holdings within the commingled asset pool. Pension System's unique design does not combine or co-mingle participants' 401(k) assets. Instead, it uses separate self-directed brokerage accounts to maintain and track participants' investments.
(Summary) In conjunction with Union Bank of California, Pension Systems Corporation developed 401(k) Easy Online, a web-based 401(k) plan administration service based upon the success of the 'run-it-yourself' pc-based 401(k) Easy.
Reprinted from THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
YOUR MONEY MATTERS
By JEFF D. OPDYKE
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Tom Hendricks's employer recently adopted a 401(k) retirement plan for him and his colleagues. Big deal, you say? Well, it is. Mr. Hendricks and the 13 managers who oversee trust-fund operations for a California union have never had access to the hugely popular retirement accounts because of the expense and complexity of running them.
Now, though, cheap and efficient technology is changing those notions. Easy-to-use software and low-cost, back-office support - much of it available online - are opening retirement-savings benefits to an estimated 27 million small-business workers who don't have retirement plans. It's also allowing companies with inflexible and meager plans to upgrade to more appealing, full-blown 401(k) by pushing down administrative costs and challenging the idea that small-business owners can't manage the rule-bound accounts. (more available from WSJ)
Union Bank of California, N.A., Pension Systems Corporation, Launch Web-based 401(k) Administration Service for Small Businesses
LOS ANGELES Union Bank of California (UBOC), N.A., and Pension Systems Corporation have jointly developed a web-based 401(k) plan administration service based upon their existing desktop product. The service allows clients to set up and manage low-cost, option-rich "run-it-yourself" 401(k) plans from any location connected to the Internet — be it via computer terminal, web-enabled mobile phone or PDA device; access via a toll-free automated voice response system is also available. Like the desktop product, the system is geared particularly toward serving small businesses of one to 100 employees.
The new online service called 401(k) Enginuity (www.401kenginuity.com) affords employers plan-specific, convenient access and rapid processing of data and information requests relating to all areas of 401(k) administration activity, including point-and-click plan compliance testing with results potentially in seconds. Other features include participant account access, investment education materials and enrollment seminars via web casting. (More Available from UBOC)