Broadcast Retirement Network’s Jeffrey Snyder discusses evaluating and implementing retirement income products with SS&C Technologies’ Ryan Grosdidier and Income America’s Matthew Wolniewicz, AIFA.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
This morning on BRN retirement, building the bridge to retirement income, part one of our conversation, joining me now to discuss this Ryan Grosdidier of SS&C Technologies and Matthew Wolniewicz, AIFA, Income America, LLC. Ryan, always great to see it. Matt, great to see you as well.
Welcome to the program.
Ryan Grosdidier, SS&C Technologies
Thanks for having us, Jeff.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Ryan, it’s always great to see you. And I know we’re going to talk about building this bridge for retirement income, but I thought maybe I’d start off by asking you, where do things stand today with the adoption of retirement income products in our retirement system?
Ryan Grosdidier, SS&C Technologies
I think it’s an exciting time, Jeff. We continue to move forward. There are large record keepers that are continuing to build out programs.
And there’s just a lot of activity. I think we’re continuing to focus on education. So whether it’s educating advisors, educating consultants, plan sponsors, and even record keepers as they form their programs.
I think that moving a supplemental savings plan to a true retirement income plan just doesn’t happen overnight. So I know the naysayers will continually say, oh, there’s no adoption, there’s no adoption. The adoption is happening.
But as more infrastructure is built out in the industry, that will only accelerate.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Retirement industry is kind of glacial. So things happen over time. And you can look back at other products and your target day funds and other areas that over time continue to evolve and grow and now have a significant representation in retirement plans.
Matt, always great to see you. Thanks for joining us as well. I can tell you that I have my phone here and my phone gets blown up with alerts of new products, retirement income products every day.
I suppose yours and Ryan’s do as well. Are these products available across the record keeping platforms?
Matthew Wolniewicz, AIFA, Income America, LLC
Jeff, they’ve become more available as time goes on. 2024 has actually been a really big year. We’ve had announcements from really two of the largest record keepers, both Fidelity and Empower, introducing their suite of solutions.
And so as that happens, and as they make the investment to make these solutions available to all participants, it definitely puts pressure and wakes up really the rest of the record keeping community. And so firms are either in the process of really doing due diligence on the solutions that they’re going to bring to market or they’re working on bringing solutions to market. 2025 is really going to be a big year across the industry.
And you’re right, there’s probably 30 solutions that have been introduced from some of the largest asset managers that are out there. And to your point earlier about the retirement side working at a glacier pace, it is true. And sometimes it takes regulation and legislation to really encourage adoption.
And so if you think back to target dates, what really made them popular in a QDIA was the Pension Protection Act back in 2006. And when I think about the target dates, not only was it target dates, but we also had the autos. So we auto enrolled people, and then we auto increased their contribution over time.
And then professionally managed solutions were available as a QDIA. And once that happened, adoption really soared and went through the roof. Now it’s time for auto income.
And so the record keeping community is hard at work on figuring out exactly what they’re going to do. I actually feel bad for them because with the secure 2.0, there’s so many optional provisions that there’s a lot of different things that they can do. And so they’ve got a lot of competing priorities, but a big year in 2024.
And I think that 2025 is going to be even bigger for in-plan guaranteed solutions.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Yeah, really, really well said. And Ryan, when we last had you on, I think it was last time or maybe in the prior time, we talked about the middleware solutions that are available to kind of facilitate the connectivity between plans and record keepers. Is the infrastructure in place to accommodate these retirement income products?
Because as we were talking, my phone just blew up with another announcement.
Ryan Grosdidier, SS&C Technologies
So, yes, in some instances, some products, some record keepers are already connected in SS&C. We’ve had a platform that’s been live for over 15 years. We have a suite of solutions and record keepers that are connected.
But I think to your question and to Matt’s point previously, the build out is still happening, but it’s happening now. We’re busier than ever within the industry on the technology side, as Matt mentioned, again, connecting some of these large record keepers into the ecosystem, allowing them to offer many solutions through a single connection. And that pipeline is robust and will continue to build out.
So if you’re not connected today, it’s going to happen. And as I mentioned previously, there was just another large record keeper in the last couple of weeks that came out and mentioned that they’re putting a program together and utilizing middleware as well. So I don’t think that that is going to end.
I think it’s as record keepers continue to do strategy analysis on how they’re going to bring retirement income solutions to market, a lot of them are going to go in the middleware direction just because it’s the most efficient and scalable way for them to implement a suite of retirement income products across the program that they’re constructing.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Yeah, I mean, that IT infrastructure seems to really be the future for connectivity that we’re just discussing today and so many aspects of the retirement system. Matt, I want to conclude this part of our conversation talking about due diligence. And from my previous experience, I know that due diligence is so important for the retirement plan advisor, but also the fiduciary.
Do you see any hurdles as it relates to these products and performing the due diligence you need as a fiduciary to add a suite of products or services to a plan?
Matthew Wolniewicz, AIFA, Income America, LLC
Yeah, Jeff, you’re right. I mean, the retirement plan advisors held to the highest standard, which is the fiduciary standard. They have to do everything that’s in the best interest of the participant.
And so they’re very careful in how they go about performing not only initial due diligence, but also ongoing due diligence. I think the biggest challenge for the industry has just been there’s been so many products that have come out in such a short period of time. They’re all a little bit different.
And so really, it’s up to the advisor. And this is really where they can shine and add a lot of value to understand exactly what’s most important to the plan. What do the plan demographics look like?
And what is it that is most interesting to those participants? Once they have that fundamental understanding, then the due diligence process can be just as simple as is it in the plan or is it out of the plan? And then once we get below there, there’s a couple of simple steps that advisors can take to help make the best selection for their plans that they serve.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Yeah, due diligence, again, a really big cornerstone of what we do in the retirement industry. We don’t just bolt things on. And part two of our conversation tomorrow, gentlemen, we’re going to be talking about due diligence and the roadmap to adding retirement income products.
Matt, Ryan, we’re going to have to leave it there. We look forward to having you back on the program tomorrow. And we thank you so much for your perspective.
Thank you, Jeff.
Ryan Grosdidier, SS&C Technologies
Thank you, Joe. Appreciate it.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
And don’t forget to subscribe to our daily newsletter, The Morning Pulse, for all the news in one place. Details, of course, at our website. And we’re back again tomorrow with Ryan and Matt, I should say, as we pick up part two of our conversation on building the bridge to retirement income.
Until then, I’m Jeff Snyder. Stay safe, keep on saving, and don’t forget, roll with the changes.
This story was originally published by TheStreet on Dec 1, 2025, where it first appeared in the Retirement section. Add TheStreet as a Preferred Source by clicking here.