Castle Rock Innovations’ AXIS Retirement Analytics Platform, Leads the Way with Standard, Automated Connectivity to Major Retirement Plan Data Providers and Their Partners
(PRWEB) October 14, 2014 -- The Department of Labor introduced regulations in 2012 that require all retirement plan service providers to fully disclose their retirement plan fees, compensation and services provided to plan fiduciaries. AXIS Platform is connecting the industry with its centralized data aggregation engine.
In a call to action recently, many industry leaders called for better data availability and management. The need for data around ERISA plans is even more important today than years ago when the regulatory mandates where being placed on the industry. The regulations only uncovered the lack of connectivity in the industry. With all the challenges facing the retirement industry, creating data aggregation and distribution is a task not favored among management and compliance teams. Data aggregation and management requires continuous monitoring, management and improvements as the industry goes through changes.
“We have created a standard for retirement plan data aggregation and distribution,” says Khash Sarrafi, CEO of Castle Rock Innovations. “The industry does not have to guess where there plans are anymore or how to distribute data in what format. It is not cost effective to build your own data aggregation or distribution anymore to simply manage and grow your retirement business. We listened to each of our 80+ record keeping firms that provide automated feed to us to enable connectivity for the industry. We modeled to each record keeper so that they don’t have to create multiple feeds to multiple entities, this allows us to provide data and services to our mutual clients, no matter what technology or standard they follow.”
As Patrick Rieck, Head of Corporate Retirement at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney states, "Morgan Stanley and most of the leading record keepers in the retirement industry have spent a great amount of time and money building customized daily data feeds between our organizations because a centralized source of information did not exist. Access to both plan and participant information is vital in order for us to provide our clients with the service they deserve, help participants reach their retirement income goals, and meet our regulatory obligations. If a centralized data warehouse at an industry level had existed, we would have been able to meet those needs much more efficiently."
“We have been managing our client’s data aggregation and compliance related services for over 3 years now through AXIS by creating a zero touch environment. As a seasoned financial services technology company, we understood the challenges with building this aggregation platform in 2010. As our over 100 clients who use AXIS can attest, the industry has embraced Castle Rock as industry leader and innovators and our deep partnership with our record keepers and custodial firms has allowed for Data Openness between partner firms." states Khash Sarrafi.
About Castle Rock Innovations and AXIS
Castle Rock Innovations has been serving the financial industry for over 20 years by providing our clients with technology that improves efficiency and creates value. In anticipation of 401(k) fee disclosure regulations that were introduced in 2012 by the Department of Labor, Castle Rock innovations developed the Axis Retirement Analytics Platform ™, a real-time, web-based platform that allows retirement broker-dealers, record keepers, banks and retirement plan fiduciaries to meet these regulatory fee disclosure reporting requirements. Today the Axis Retirement Analytics Platform ™ is an industry leading product used by 10 of the top 20 broker dealers in the nation and more than 105 clients. AXIS currently holds data from over 80+ Record Keepers and Insurance companies and provides a zero touch automated connectivity (Single Sign-On) to the largest data sources.
Castle Rock Innovations Inc. is a privately owned and operated corporation with headquarters in Chicago Illinois and offices throughout. Our company has been recognized by Inc500 as one of the fasted growing private companies. http://www.axisretirement.com
Khash Sarrafi, AXIS Retirement Analytics Platform, http://www.axisretirement.com, 860-573-5595, [email protected]
Share this article