TIAA Joins Portability Services Network Consortium

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Apr 04, 2023, 09:59 ET

Company Sees Auto Portability and Preserving Savings as Key to Its Mission of Providing Lifetime Income for All

NEW YORK, April 4, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- TIAA, a leading provider of secure retirements and outcome-focused investment solutions to millions of people and thousands of institutions, is joining Retirement Clearinghouse, LLC (RCH) in a new consortium that aims to help America's under-served and under-saved workers—especially minorities, women and low-income workers—improve their retirement outcomes.

The consortium, known as the Portability Services Network, LLC (PSN), will help workers automatically move smaller retirement savings in 401(k), 401(a), 403(b), and 457 accounts to their new employers' plans as they change jobs.

"Forty percent of American families are at risk of running out of money in retirement, and the issue is even more dire for women and minority communities," said Thasunda Brown Duckett, president and CEO of TIAA. "As an industry, we have an obligation to close the retirement savings gap and ensure more people can secure their financial futures. Though we have a long way to go, this industry consortium enabling auto portability is an important step toward helping more Americans hold on to their money during their professional journeys, so they have the option to turn their savings into lifetime income when they stop working."

"We welcome TIAA's decision to join us in our ongoing effort to help all American workers save more for retirement," said Robert L. Johnson, Chairman of The RLJ Companies and Chairman of Portability Services Network and Retirement Clearinghouse. "The Portability Services Network provides the means for millions of Americans, and especially minorities, to achieve a financially secure retirement simply by keeping and protecting more of what they've earned during their working lives."

The need for auto portability has been driven by the lack of seamless plan-to-plan savings portability amid a highly mobile workforce. Approximately $92 billion in savings leaves the U.S. retirement system every year because Americans who switch jobs prematurely cash out their workplace retirement accounts and pay taxes and penalties on those cash-outs, according to Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) data cited by RCH. Workers with less than $5,000—the focus of the auto portability service—cash out at the time of their job change at much higher rates than other job-changing workers.ⁱ Within this cohort, cash-out rates for job-changing minorities, low-income workers, and women are also higher than average.

The PSN consortium is meant to serve as a utility to retirement savers with the goal of operating at the lowest cost to workers participating in auto portability. PSN is open to all recordkeepers to connect. To learn more, please visit https://psn1.com/learning-center/about-psn/a-retirement-industry-led-utility.

About TIAA
TIAA is a leading provider of secure retirements and outcome-focused investment solutions to millions of people and thousands of institutions. It is the #1 not-for-profit retirement market providerⁱⁱ, paid more than $6.4 billion in lifetime income to retired clients in 2021 and has $1.2 trillion in assets under management (as of 12/31/2022)ⁱⁱⁱ.

About Portability Service Network
Portability Services Network, LLC (PSN) is an independent, industry-led utility which utilizes the Retirement Clearinghouse (RCH) auto portability solution to build a nationwide, digital hub connecting workplace retirement plan recordkeepers and the plan sponsors they serve that elect the auto portability service.

For PSN member recordkeepers and the plans that have elected the auto portability solution, PSN acts as a clearinghouse for automatically locating a participant's active 401(k), 401(a), 403(b) or 457 account in their current employer's plan and transferring the same participant's account (under $5,000) from their prior employer's plan into their active account.
PSN currently represents approximately 62.6 million workers across more than 139,000 employer-sponsored retirement plans, based on data published by Pensions & Investments. The founding owner members, including RCH, encourage other recordkeepers to join the PSN, as growth of the network will only help to strengthen its ability to minimize cash-out leakage and improve retirement outcomes for America's under-served and under-saved workers by creating even more opportunities to match participants with the workplace retirement accounts at their previous employers. For more information, please visit https://psn1.com/.

About Retirement Clearinghouse
Retirement Clearinghouse, LLC is the leading provider of portability and consolidation services for defined contribution plans, acting as a trusted, unbiased intermediary between plan sponsors, participants, recordkeepers and other parties. Retirement Clearinghouse's integrated financial technology, data and information solutions facilitate automated consolidation of small, redundant accounts for sponsors to improve plan performance, and enable participants, regardless of account balance, to seamlessly transport their retirement savings through every phase of their careers. These solutions include a domestic call center providing specialized assistance designed to enable end-to-end portability and account consolidation; uncashed check services; and the capability to search for lost and missing participants.

Retirement Clearinghouse works with more than 35,000 retirement plans and has helped guide over 1.8 million plan participants with more than $29 billion in retirement savings. Retirement Clearinghouse is a portfolio company of The RLJ Companies, founded by Robert L. Johnson. For more information, please visit www.rch1.com.

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ⁱ PLANSPONSOR Record Keeper Survey July 21, 2022
ⁱⁱ As of July 21, 2022. Based on data in PLANSPONSOR's 403(b) 2022 DC Recordkeeping Survey, combined 457 and 403(b) data.
ⁱⁱⁱ As of December 31, 2022 assets under management across Nuveen Investments affiliates and TIAA investment management teams are $1.2 trillion.
This material is for informational or educational purposes only and does not constitute fiduciary investment advice under ERISA, a securities recommendation under all securities laws, or an insurance product recommendation under state insurance laws or regulations. This material does not take into account any specific objectives or circumstances of any particular investor, or suggest any specific course of action. Investment decisions should be made based on the investor's own objectives and circumstances.
Investment products may be subject to market and other risk factors. See the applicable product literature or visit TIAA.org for details.
Investment, insurance and annuity products are not FDIC insured, are not bank guaranteed, are not deposits, are not insured by any federal government agency, are not a condition to any banking service or activity, and may lose value.
TIAA-CREF Individual & Institutional Services, LLC, Member FINRA, distributes securities products. Annuity contracts and certificates are issued by Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America (TIAA) and College Retirement Equities Fund (CREF), New York, NY. Each is solely responsible for its own financial condition and contractual obligations.
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