Wealth Management Firm Rebalance Launches New 401(k) Product Better K™, Offering a Personalized Approach to Retirement Planning for Small Business Owners and Employees

Better K^™ provides small businesses with an alternative to traditionally impersonal, expensive and cumbersome 401(k) services

BETHESDA, Md.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Rebalance, a mission-driven investment firm committed to making premium financial management services affordable and accessible to everyday investors, has announced the launch of Better K^™. Better K is a new 401(k) product designed to take the firm’s sophisticated, personalized approach to wealth management and apply it to retirement planning for small business owners and their employees.

Better K is unique in the marketplace because it provides each plan participant an investment strategy based on their own, personal needs. Traditional 401(k) providers historically employ a cookie-cutter approach to retirement planning, offering an overwhelming menu of investment options for employees to choose from. In comparison, each Better K plan participant is provided a personalized risk assessment. The results are then used to select the optimal retirement portfolio for each participant.

“Our experience over the past decade of working with individual investors is the impetus for developing Better K,” stated Rebalance Managing Director Mitchell Tuchman. “Time and time again, clients have come to us with 401(k) plans from previous employers that clearly weren’t developed with their best interest in mind. While many companies offer 401(k) plans to their employees, they provide no guidance or investment education. Employees are left to their own devices to select from a laundry list of investment options with no support from a professional financial planner or investment manager.”

Better K was developed by the Rebalance Investment Committee, the members of which have managed some of the most successful investment plans and endowments in the world: Professor Burton Malkiel, Dr. Charley Ellis and Jay Vivian.

In addition to providing unparalleled personalized service, Better K cuts fees for plan participants and administrators and liability for small business owners. Traditionally, small businesses with 100 employees or less pay significantly higher annual fees on their 401(k) plans than larger employers. Better K by Rebalance puts small businesses on an equal footing with larger employers, providing small business owners with the opportunity to offer competitive retirement benefits at an affordable price point.

Because Rebalance assumes the role as an investment advisor to the plan it also assumes most of the fiduciary responsibilities, thereby dramatically reducing a business owner’s liability exposure.

“Small businesses often get punished when it comes to options and fees associated with traditional 401(k) plans,” continued Tuchman. “With Better K, small business owners and their employees can reduce their annual 401(k) fees by up to 50%. Not only that, at a time when more employers are getting sued over fiduciary issues related to their 401(k) plan, the added feature of greatly reduced legal risk to the business owner is a huge benefit.”

In partnership with EPIC Retirement Plan Services, Better K by Rebalance provides plan participants with 24/7 access to their accounts via a cutting-edge platform. Participants can access their account via a robust mobile app, easy-to-use website, or multilingual telephone support. Finally, Better K provides highly effective employee investment education and award-winning customer service.

For more information about Better K by Rebalance, visit https://www.rebalance360.com/401k/.

About Rebalance

Rebalance is a mission-driven, award-winning investment firm committed to offering premium, fiduciary wealth management services to ordinary investors. The firm is at the forefront of providing consumers with a fundamentally different and better set of investment options: lower costs, “endowment-quality” globally-diversified investment portfolios, and systematic rebalancing.

Rebalance’s Investment Committee is anchored by three of the most respected experts in the finance world: Burt Malkiel, the world-renowned Senior Economist, Emeritus, at Princeton University and author of “A Random Walk Down Wall Street”; Dr. Charley Ellis, the former longtime chairman of the Yale University Endowment; and Jay Vivian, the former Managing Director of IBM’s $100+ billion in retirement investment funds for more than 300,000 employees worldwide.

Rebalance is headquartered in Palo Alto, CA and Bethesda, MD and currently manages over 600 clients with more than $750 million in financial assets. In 2018, Rebalance was honored by Schwab’s 2018 Pacesetter IMPACT Award™ for Innovation and Growth.

For more information on Rebalance, visit http://www.rebalance360.com.

About EPIC Retirement Plan Services

EPIC RPS is a national provider of customized, open-architecture retirement plan recordkeeping, marketing and service solutions for banks, trust companies, third party administrators, investment advisors and other financial intermediaries who serve the retirement plan market.

Headquartered in Rochester, NY, EPIC RPS serves clients in all 50 states and has divisions in St. Louis, MO, Peoria, IL and Portland, ME. The EPIC family of companies provide recordkeeping, administration, and plan design solutions to more than 5,000 retirement plans, serves over 275,000 plan participants, and administers $19 billion in retirement assets. EPIC RPS is a wholly-owned subsidiary of NBT Bancorp Inc.

For more information on EPIC RPS, visit https://www.epicrps.com/.

Contacts

Linda Sperling

Dir. Of Strategic Communications

703-606-2518

lsperling@rebalance360.com