45 Institutions Utilizing Patent Pending Service to Manage Loan and Hardship Transactions
TIAA-CREF, one of the world’s largest retirement systems, announced that 45 clients have adopted its Compliance Coordinator service. TIAA-CREF Compliance Coordinator is an easy to use, web-based tool designed to help plan sponsors with multiple investment providers ensure that all loans and hardship withdrawals are in compliance with applicable IRS regulations.
“Compliance Coordinator, using universal data standards, allows us to view aggregated data from all of our investment providers without adding to administrative responsibilities,” said Dan Rives, Associate Vice President, Human Resources, Indiana University. “This boosts our efficiency and allows us to allocate resources to other plan objectives. Today these things are more important than ever.”
Compliance Coordinator offers a proactive service to help plan sponsors ensure that noncompliant transactions are prevented before they occur. The service aggregates and reports loan and hardship withdrawal activity across participating investment providers using SPARK data standards to help make sure requirements are met before a loan/hardship withdrawal is processed. Plan sponsors can view and print comprehensive reports via a web-based application. Data is updated daily so it is current when needed.
Given the unique process used to facilitate the exchange of data between multiple investment providers and the plan administrator, TIAA has submitted an application for a method patent for this service to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
“We designed Compliance Coordinator with the 403(b) retirement plan administrator in mind,” said Paul Gallagher, who developed and manages TIAA-CREF’s Compliance Coordinator service. “We know time and budgets are tight and benefits teams need one service that helps prevent noncompliant transactions before they occur, is easy to implement, and provides comprehensive participant and plan-level information across investment providers for a retirement plan.”
The application was conceived and designed by TIAA-CREF and developed by Advent Software, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADVS), a leading provider of software and services to the global investment management industry.
“TIAA-CREF’s web-based Compliance Coordinator helps my staff and I conduct our business as usual while helping ensure that noncompliant transactions are prevented before they occur,” said Cathleen Burke, Director, Human Resources Division, Virginia Commonwealth University. “TIAA-CREF’s Compliance Coordinator simplifies loan or hardship requests for employees and provides us with a plan-wide summary of all the information we need to review across all our vendors, so I can be sure we’re compliant with 403(b) regulations.”
TIAA-CREF selected Advent as its data partner for the Compliance Coordinator service because of the company's legacy of success with Advent® Custodial Data, its industry leading service which collects, consolidates and electronically delivers secure, standardized custodial data from more than 470 custodians to over 3,000 investment firms.
“Compliance Coordinator allows us to monitor aggregated participant loan and hardship data from all of our vendors seamlessly,” added Tom Lauman, Director of Benefits, Washington University in St. Louis. “It is a cost-effective service to help ensure ongoing compliance with IRS regulations without undue burden on our internal team or retirement plan vendors.”
TIAA-CREF has created a suite of fiduciary and compliance services to help plan sponsors comply with 403(b) regulations and meet plan goals. In addition to Compliance Coordinator, and investment policy and monitoring services, TIAA-CREF has responded to clients' needs by developing sample plan documents for approximately 8,000 clients over the past year and launching a new robust financial reporting package. TIAA-CREF also provides extensive communication and training for administrators, a comprehensive compliance guide and other services to help ensure 403(b) plan compliance and fiduciary responsibilities are met.
Plan sponsors interested in learning more about Compliance Coordinator or other TIAA-CREF services can do so at: http://www.tiaa-cref.org/administrators/index.html
About TIAA-CREF
TIAA-CREF (www.tiaa-cref.org) a national financial services organization and the leading provider of retirement services in the academic, research, medical and cultural fields with $374 billion in combined assets under management (6/30/09).
Chad Peterson, Director, Corporate Media Relations
cpeterson@tiaa-cref.org, 1 212 916-4808 Cell: 1 917 715-9083
Abby Aylman Cohen, Manager, Corporate Media Relations
aacohen@tiaa-cref.org, 1 212 916-4381 Cell: 1 917 596-4758
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