New Online Account Tool Puts Financial Professionals in the Driver's Seat
March 10, 2008 (Des Moines, Iowa) — Retirement Dashboard, a new online account management tool from the Principal Financial Group®, helps retirement-focused financial professionals save time and work smarter with fast, tailored access to client data.
Located in the Principal eFinancial ProfessionalSM (Principal eFP) Web site at www.principal.com, Retirement Dashboard gives financial professionals secure, 24/7 access to information on their qualified retirement plan clients with The Principal®.
Retirement Dashboard provides access to at-a-glance client summaries to help financial professionals evaluate their book of business and determine priorities. They can drill down for more detailed information such as client-specific investment options and on-demand, downloadable reports for:
- account value comparisons;
- distribution information;
- investment options;
- investment balances; and
- participation rates.
"Retirement Dashboard gives financial professionals an edge by helping them better manage their business, and in the end, deliver top-notch service to their clients," said Dan McGee, vice president and managing director, Retirement Distribution. "For example, they can quickly see which clients need to comply with the Pension Protection Act qualified default investment alternatives provision without tracking down individual client data."
Financial professionals can download data into an Excel or PDF file, allowing them to easily sort and analyze information. They can even combine it with client data from other retirement plan service providers.
Support staff are able to view client data through the "delegate" function of Retirement Dashboard. If financial professionals or their support staff have questions about a particular client, they can send an e-mail directly to the client's service representative at The Principal.
"Some competitors [of The Principal] have similar data, but it's not all centralized like the Retirement Dashboard," said Kris Krikorian of A.G. Edwards. "The Principal is the only one with a roll-up page for the whole block."
A new compliance tab allows financial professionals to view the compliance testing results of all qualified retirement plan clients in one place. Compliance information is updated as soon as it becomes available, including status of actual deferral percentage, actual contribution percentage and pass/fail testing.
"By adding the compliance tab, we're arming financial professionals with data they need in the heat of compliance season," said Sarah Schmitz, Retirement Dashboard project leader. Schmitz said the information allows financial professionals to be proactive in their discussions with plan sponsors regarding:
- plan design;
- participation levels;
- deferral rates; and
- refunds and top heavy funding requirements (in some cases).
"We've received nothing but positive feedback from users so far," McGee said. "We're currently working to deliver additional client data and plan to launch a government reporting tab this spring."
About the Principal Financial Group
The Principal Financial Group® (The Principal®)1 is a leader in offering businesses, individuals and institutional clients a wide range of financial products and services, including retirement and investment services, life and health insurance, and banking through its diverse family of financial services companies. A member of the Fortune® 500, the Principal Financial Group has $311.1 billion in assets under management2 and serves some 18.6 million customers worldwide from offices in Asia, Australia, Europe, Latin America and the United States. Principal Financial Group, Inc. is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol PFG. For more information, visit www.principal.com.
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1) "The Principal Financial Group" and "The Principal" are registered service marks of Principal Financial Services, Inc., a member of the Principal Financial Group.
2) As of December 31, 2007
