Vanguard, a provider of defined contribution (DC) record-keeping and investment management services, has partnered with EQ, a shareholder services company, to provide equity compensation services to plan sponsor clients and their participants. The offer will enable employers to seamlessly integrate their employee equity compensation plan with their existing DC plan and provide participants with an intuitive, one-stop platform designed to simplify administration, streamline transactions, and inform financial decisions.
“Vanguard continues to introduce integrated, technology-fuelled solutions to meet the evolving needs of plan sponsor clients and participants,” says Martha King, managing director of Vanguard’s Institutional Investor Group. “Our partnership with EQ underscores our mission of helping millions of individuals save for a secure retirement by providing participants with a comprehensive suite of tools they need to achieve their financial goals.”
Plan sponsors who elect to add employee compensation services will benefit from EQ’s world-class technology platform, featuring real-time financial analysis, modelling tools, and support of multiple languages and currencies, integrated within Vanguard’s existing participant web portal. Redesigned in 2017, Vanguard’s personalised online participant experience provides capabilities such as the Retirement Readiness Tool and Personalised Participant Journeys intended to help participants balance their financial goals and save for the future.
“We are delighted to serve Vanguard’s clients with our market-leading equity compensation services,” says EQ USA CEO Todd May. “With a shared commitment and passion for integrity, focus, and stewardship, our partnership will support our joint clients’ objectives in providing holistic financial wellness.”
With more than USD1.6 trillion in DC assets under management, Vanguard is a strategic partner to thousands of plan sponsors and helps more than 5 million participants save for retirement. Through a combination of proprietary solutions and strategic partnerships, the firm continually develops innovative ways to improve participant outcomes. Vanguard’s relentless focus on plan design innovation, a key retirement readiness driver, means plan participants benefit from the firm’s leading plan design capabilities, enduring investment options, and retirement thought leadership.
Vanguard also partners with leading firms such as The Newport Group to provide non-qualified plan administration for its 401(k) clients. Most recently, in 2019, the firm partnered with HealthEquity, the nation’s leading independent health savings account (HSA) custodian, to offer an integrated HSA option for sponsors and their participants.
