Wachovia Retirement Services is now reaching out to the small and "emerging" business market. The strategy aims to leverage the resources of Wachovia Securities, the third-largest broker/dealer in the country, as well as the company's own large retirement plan business, and offer full-service retirement plans to companies with 401(k) plan assets from $500,000 to $3 million. The Charlotte, North Carolina-based unit of banking giant Wachovia Corp. found that its small business customers–those with 50 to 300 employees–as well as its financial advisor network were looking for a retirement solution. So Wachovia designed a full-service platform for them that is usually available only to much larger plans.
Joe Ready, director of Wachovia Retirement Services, says the do-it-yourself 401(k) Internet services of today just don't cut it for small business owners. "I believe that 401(k)s need to be sold, not bought," he says. Small business owner clients want what "we offer," he says–"the hand-holding process." Of course, as the businesses grow, and plan assets surpass $3 million, Wachovia counts on remaining their retirement planner, while still administering to up and comers. Wachovia's main competitors in the 401(k) market are insurance companies with their group annuity products and mutual fund companies. The new full-service retirement plans feature more than 120 investment choices, including products from Evergreen Investments, Wachovia's asset management division, as well as third-party products.
Services include record-keeping, trust and custody services, compliance testing and reporting with plan document preparation assistance, management reporting, participant statement production and fulfillment, and Internet sites for access by all parties. Wachovia is using the technology and automation already available for its managed accounts and complementing it with financial advisors' expertise. In fact, to design the service, which hasn't generally been available for plans of this size, Wachovia worked with financial advisors and small business clients. Wachovia owns WYSTAR, a record-keeping platform, which it will use for the emerging business market, as well as the proprietary AdviceTrack managed account platform used extensively with other 401(k)s offered by Wachovia.
The use of the company's platforms and systems brought to a smaller scale keeps the small business 401(k) plans affordable for small companies while retaining the features and benefits of larger plans, according to the company. Wachovia Retirement Services has more than 4,100 plans with more than 1.1 million participants and pensioners, and more than $68 billion in assets under administration, it says. For more information, go to //www.wachovia.com/401k
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