401k plan participation, plan participants, retirement savings

The Plan Participant Gateway

for unlimited access to self-service participation in your 401k plan

Introduction

The Plan Participant Gateway

Participants Update Information Themselves

Participants Update Investment Designations Themselves

Participants Monitor, Model and Apply for Loans, Transfers, and Distributions Themselves

Participation Is More Than Just Password Protected

[topic 1]

Entrance into your customized 401k Easy Online plan administration and participation centers occurs through…

-- The Plan Sponsor Gateway (click here to jump to its descriptive page) for Internet based self-service 401k administration by your authorized personnel.

-- The Plan Participant Gateway (see below) for Internet based self-service 401k participation and information for your company employees.

The exact features and capabilities accessible through each gateway depend on the customization options you as Plan Sponsor choose for your company plan and those that the eligible employee chose for his or her individual 401k account.

This page explains the features you can make available to your 401k plan participants through your plan's customized Plan Participant Gateway.

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[topic 2]

401k Easy Online empowers plan participants to serve themselves to their 401k account activity and information — at any time, day or night, from any location connected to the Internet.

-- 401k Easy Online self-service plan participation gives eligible employees on-the-spot access to enrolling in the plan, updating personal information (see topic 3 below) and investment designations, viewing/printing activity reports and account statements, and 401k loan, transfer and distribution modeling and/or new submissions, among other things.

-- General as well as plan-specific investment information is available at a mouse click.

-- Self-service plan participation is extremely convenient for plan participants and can greatly boost plan participation rates.

-- Self-service plan participation means far less work for your in-house plan administrator.

401k Easy Online creates a home page for each plan participant. Upon login, the participant arrives at his or her home page.

-- As plan sponsor, you can have 401k Easy Online display certain categories of information on each participant's home page, for instance, the participant's investment designations, account balances, and/or recent account activity.

-- As plan sponsor, you can compose bulletins via your Plan Sponsor Gateway for posting on employees' home pages. (Please visit our Plan Sponsor Gateway page for details and descriptions of the 401k Easy Online features available to plan sponsors.)

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[topic 3]

Plan participants never have to involve your plan administrator in routine account information updates:

-- Plan participants, after logging into their customized section of your 401k plan's Plan Participant Gateway, can update their personal information themselves, online, at their leisure. Participants can amend their address, telephone number(s), disbursement preferences, passwords, and more. 401k Easy Online immediately notifies your designated plan administrator via e-mail of any changes.

-- As plan sponsor, you can elect to mandate that a designated party (likely your in-house plan administrator) approve changes before they can become effective.

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[topic 4]

Plan participants never have to go through your 401k plan administrator to access and/or amend salary deferral rates and/or investment designations.

-- The participant's customized Plan Participant Gateway displays available plan investments and indicates those to which the participant is contributing and at what rates.

-- The participant can, at any time, opt to amend his/her designations.

-- Your company can elect to mandate that your 401k plan administrator approve changes before they become effective.

-- All investment and salary deferral designations are restricted within 401k Easy Online by rates allowable under the current federal law.

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[topic 5]

Plan participants never have to go through your 401k plan administrator for transaction information on existing loans, transfers, distributions, etc.. Instead, they simply go online and access the information themselves.

In addition, participants considering a new loan, transfer or distribution can have 401k Easy Online model the effect of such on their 401k account:

-- During the modeling process, 401k Easy Online calculates the availability of funds based on money sources, aged buckets (if applicable), and other applicable rules.

-- To accept a new loan, transfer or distribution, the participant must correctly answer one of his or her “secret” questions that the employee established in setting up his or her Log In name and Password (see below).

-- New loans, distributions, and transfers must be approved by the 401k plan administrator and are indicated as “Pending” until so approved.

-- 401k Easy Online gathers all the information the 401k plan administrator needs to approve or deny an application.

-- You can elect to have 401k Easy Online decline any new submissions for loans, transfers or distributions if an application for such is already in the system as pending approval of your plan administrator. This works as a safeguard against plan participants flooding the system with applications for the same transaction while the plan administrator awaits, for instance, consent of spouse approval.

Within the Loans, Transfers, and Distributions panel, the participant also has the option of downloading and/or printing necessary forms to request loans, distributions, and transfers in person from your 401k plan administrator and to manually perform other related account maintenance activities.

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[topic 6]

Plan participants enter the Plan Participant Gateway by keying in the user name and password they established during their first visit.

-- Your 401k plan administrator issues a temporary password for that first visit to allow an employee entrance into the system.

-- Eligible employees not currently enrolled in the plan can easily be granted temporary passwords by your 401k plan administrator so they can investigate the system and see how easy saving money via the company's online 401k plan will be.

-- When establishing their user name and password, plan participants also establish three identifying questions and answers, such as "Mother's maiden name?" answer: "Johnson." The questions are later used to confirm the participant's identity when the participant attempts certain transactions (for instance, applying for a 401k loan, or retrieval of his/her password).

-- The system houses a log of each employee's user name, password and three questions/answers within the Plan Sponsor Gateway; plan participants can request help from your 401k plan administrator (via the 401k Easy Online, in person, by phone, etc.) at any time.

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