Point-of-Sale Finance Series: Understanding the Development and Regulation of Buy Now, Pay Later Products — The Consumer Finance Podcast
Enhancing Card Partnerships and Compliance: A Conversation With Matthew Goldman — Payments Pros – The Payments Law Podcast
Regulatory Rollback: CFPB’s Withdrawal of Informal Guidance Sparks New Litigation Dynamics – The Consumer Finance Podcast
Sunday Book Review: August 10, 2025, The More Books from The Ethicsverse Library Edition
AI Today in 5: August 6, 2025, The Rethinking Compliance Episode
Wild Times for the Community Reinvestment Act
Suluki Secrets: Behind the Scenes of Reasonable Investigations — FCRA Focus Podcast
The Current State of the Holder Rule: Friend or Foe? — Moving the Metal: The Auto Finance Podcast
Regulatory Rollback: Legal Challenges and Opportunities in Earned-Wage Access — Payments Pros – The Payments Law Podcast
Regulatory Rollback: Legal Challenges and Opportunities in Earned-Wage Access — The Consumer Finance Podcast
Daily Compliance News: July 22, 2025, The I-9 Hell Edition
Compliance Tip of the Day: Avoiding CCO Liability
2 Gurus Talk Compliance: Episode 55 – The From Worse to Worser Edition
Balch’s Consumer Finance Compass: How Standing Can Make or Break Certification for Class Action Lawsuits in Debt Collection
Top challenges with Compliance Management
Sittenfeld v. United States – Campaign Contributions as Crimes?
From Banks to FinTech: The Evolution of Small Business Lending — The Consumer Finance Podcast
From Banks to FinTech: The Evolution of Small Business Lending — Payments Pros – The Payments Law Podcast
The Capital Ratio Podcast | Entering the US Banking Market
Daily Compliance News: July 7, 2025 the Disaster on the River Edition
Retirement plan participation is up, but don’t pop the champagne just yet. According to Morgan Stanley at Work’s just-released State of the Workplace Report, while more employees are enrolling in their 401(k) plans, many are...more
The 401(k) match has long been one of the most powerful tools for building retirement savings. It’s the “free money” we’ve all been trained to chase—and advise our clients to chase. So when Fidelity, Schwab, and others start...more
I enjoy business history and why certain businesses and organizations fail. I knew Sears and Blockbuster Video would fail, years ahead of time. I knew the synagogue where I was a member and where my son had his bris, would...more
The most disappointing part of going to law school was the lack of practicality. Sure, it helps you think like a lawyer and teach you the basics of the law, it never helped with becoming a successful lawyer or how to draw a...more
The average Self-Directed Brokerage Account (SDBA) 401(k) balance at Charles Schwab finished the fourth quarter of 2024 at $352,605, up by 13.6% since 2023, according to Charles Schwab’s latest SDBA Indicators Report....more
A plan provider once asked me if I had written a comprehensive article on why trustee-directed 401(k) plans are superior to participant-directed plans. Although I believe in this argument, I haven’t actually written such an...more
Employers who sponsor retirement plans for their employees face annual reporting requirements that may involve significant expenses. One of these is the requirement that a plan be audited annually by an independent qualified...more
Whether it’s a partner in your business or a business partnership with another plan provider, it needs to be the right fit. I worked for two third-party administrators (TPAs) where partnership mismatches helped doom them....more
One of my pet peeves out there is when you give a list of complaints to a business or an organization and they give the proverbial “shrug of the shoulders.” The “proverbial shrug” is basically the business or the organization...more
I once said that I thought I lived in a great community until I joined the Facebook community newsgroups. You just can’t imagine what people think. The same can be said about some of these polls of plan participants, which...more
A class action lawsuit brought by former SeaWorld employees that alleged participants in the SWBG LLC 401(k) plan were harmed will continue. The former employees’ arguments sustained the fiduciary breach of the duty of...more
I’ve been long in this business to remember no participant websites, so I’m amazed by technological breakthroughs. Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools BenchMine is billed as the first-ever AI 401(k) comparative analysis...more
New Vanguard data shows that 72% of plan sponsors allowed for immediate eligibility of retirement saving deferrals in 2021, which is an increase over the 58% in 2012, according to own research. Although not every Vanguard...more
One Digital announced it has acquired - 401K Resources and The Clear Group 401K Resources was founded by Renee Scherzer, the President-Elect of the National Association of Plan Advisors (NAPA). The Clear Group, founded by...more
While the past 11 years, 401(k) plan sponsors have been concerned with cost since mandatory fee disclosure, I think there is one diagnostic that they should focus on and rarely do. The diagnostic is the deferral rate of...more
When working with other plan providers, trust is the biggest underpinning. Without it, you have nothing else. If you can’t trust the plan provider you’re working with, then why are you in business with them?...more
How to determine whether a plan sponsor is paying way too much? Like Justice Potter Stewart would say, I know it when I see it. I have seen the information shown on Form 5500 or a fee disclosure form. Whether it’s the plan...more
Social media is one of the great tools that I needed to start my own ERISA practice. While my Twitter handle can attract some interaction with non-retirement folks, I’m always mindful of what I post and how I handle myself....more
I like state mandates for retirement plan coverage, because it increases interest in employers sponsoring 401(k) plans. I’m of the opinion that when push comes to shove, employers would rather sponsor their own 401(k) plan or...more
As a 401(k) plan sponsor, you need to make sure that all your plan providers understand any ownership interests in other companies that you may have and make a determination whether those interests constitute a controlled...more
Individual retirement accounts (IRAs) remain the biggest segment of the retirement plan market, hitting almost $14 trillion in assets, thanks to 401(k) rollovers. Over the past 10 years, IRA market share has increased...more
With some great presentations and a lively roundtable, That 401(k) National Virtual Conference entertained and educated more than 50 plan providers on January 26-27th. Presentations included a litigation update from Invesco’s...more
U.S. Bank and its 401(k) Savings Plan is the latest target of a class action lawsuit in Minnesota. According to the complaint, from the years 2016 through 2021, the Plan paid an effective average annual administration fee of...more