Betterment for Business Officially Launches and Announces Advisory Board

NEW YORK, Jan. 27, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Betterment, the largest automated investing service, today announced the official launch of Betterment for Business. The new 401(k) platform, which uses smarter technology and includes personalized investment advice for all plan participants, is now live for a charter group of plan sponsors and participants.

"Since Betterment launched in 2010, our mission has been to improve the way people save and invest through smarter technology," said Jon Stein, Founder and CEO of Betterment. "Today, we're excited to enter a space that is in need of innovation and smarter technology. Betterment for Business is the only turnkey 401(k) service that includes personalized investment advice for all plan participants. The era of expensive, impersonal, unguided retirement saving is over."

Boxed, a New York-based mobile wholesale shopping app, has signed up as a plan sponsor and rolled out the Betterment for Businesses 401(k) offering to all of their employees. "At Boxed, we're a technology company at heart, so working with Betterment is a natural fit for us," said Chieh Huang, CEO and Founder of Boxed. "We are thrilled to able to provide our employees a true cost-effective benefit and help set them up for retirement." Boxed has previously been widely recognized for their outstanding employee benefits, including paying for the four-year college tuition of their employees' children.

"When we announced Betterment for Business earlier this year, we anticipated the response we'd received from companies would be high, but we've been blown away by the reception," said Cynthia Loh, General Manager of Betterment for Business. "This reaffirms our view that plan participants and plan sponsors want a 401(k) that is easy to use, low cost, and includes investment advice."

Betterment for Business has formed an advisory board and its first two members are Thomas E. Clark Jr. and Ray Kanner. Thomas E. Clark Jr. is Of Counsel at The Wagner Law Group, a law firm specializing in ERISA & employee benefits. Earlier in his career, Thomas worked for the law firm of Schlichter, Bogard & Denton on such landmark cases as Tibble v. Edison, which was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court last year. Ray Kanner heads IBM's global pension and savings system, one of the largest systems in the United States, overseeing approximately $140 billion of assets.

Participants enrolled on the Betterment for Business platform are invested in a globally diversified portfolio of index-tracking exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and benefit from personalized advice in a goal-based investing framework. The Betterment platform currently serves more than 130,000 retail customers. Participants will also be able to easily open and customize taxable investment accounts, traditional and Roth IRAs, and trust accounts—and view all of them alongside their 401(k) accounts. The accounts will be intelligently managed, together—a service that few other providers in the market offer.

In 2015, Betterment was announced as a launch partner with the Social Security Administration's initiative to integrate participants' Social Security benefits into their retirement planning.

Consistent with Betterment's retail service, Betterment for Business aims to lower costs and offers a simple, easy-to-understand fee structure, with no upfront fee for plan sponsors with more than $1 million in assets, and an assets under management-based fee ranging from 0.10% to 0.60%.

Launched in 2010, Betterment manages more than $3.2 billion in assets and has continued to add new features and improve its industry-defining service. Betterment recently released RetireGuide™, a retirement planning tool that helps to inform customers as to whether or not they are invested correctly for a comfortable retirement, and SmartDeposit, a feature that makes it easy for customers to automatically invest their excess cash without having to think about it.

To request more information on Betterment for Business, please visit www.bettermentforbusiness.com

Contact Info:

Joe Ziemer, [email protected], 212-228-1328

Arielle Sobel, [email protected], 347-395-0258

Betterment is the largest, fastest-growing automated investing service, helping people to better manage, protect, and grow their wealth through smarter technology. With more than 130,000 customers and over $3.2 billion in assets under management, the service offers a globally diversified portfolio of ETFs, designed to help provide you with the best possible expected returns for retirement planning, building wealth, and other savings goals. Betterment also helps customers get on track for a comfortable retirement with RetireGuide™, a retirement planning tool that lets people know how much they should save and if they are investing correctly.

Betterment is a CNBC Disruptor 50, FT 300 and Webby award winner, and it has been featured in the New York Times, Forbes, and the Wall Street Journal. Betterment helps people to achieve a smarter financial future with minimal effort and for a fraction of the cost of traditional financial services.

401(k) plan administration services provided by Betterment for Business LLC. Investment advice to plans and plan participants provided by Betterment LLC, an SEC registered investment advisor. Brokerage services provided to clients of Betterment LLC by Betterment Securities, an SEC registered broker-dealer and member FINRA/SIPC. Betterment LLC and Betterment Securities are affiliates of Betterment for Business LLC.

Determination of fastest growing automated investment service reflects Betterment LLC's distinction of obtaining the largest number of new accounts since January 1, 2014, based on Betterment's review of account numbers self-reported in the SEC's Form ADV, across Betterment's survey of automated investing services, as of January 31, 2015.

Determination of largest, most trusted, most popular, and most preferred online financial advisor and automated investment service reflects Betterment LLC's distinction of having the most accounts, based on Betterment's review of accounts numbers self-reported in the SEC's Form ADV, across Betterment's survey of automated RIA investing services as of January 31, 2015

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