RecordkeeperDirect (with fund flexibility) will soon enable you to offer investments from multiple fund families, while still using the American Funds and the service model you’re familiar with.
This exciting new option will be available to new plans beginning in early June and existing plans in August.
Paper loan forms and many manual administrative tasks can soon be a thing of the past. Our electronic plan loan service offers online loan requests and approvals, real-time notifications, automatic loan policy creation and more. Use the loan services election form to take advantage of the electronic loan service at no additional cost.
Domestic abuse distributions, a new distribution type created by SECURE 2.0 Act, will be supported by RecordkeeperDirect beginning in June 2025. Existing plans can add this new distribution type with the Plan maintenance request.
The Reports & Analysis section on the plan sponsor website will be updated in June 2025, providing a more robust reporting experience. If you have any saved templates, they won’t carry over. Please take time now to document any templates you have.
Beginning in 2026, catch-up contributions made by employees with FICA (Federal Insurance Contributions Act) compensation greater than $145,000 (to be adjusted for inflation) in the prior year will be required to be made as Roth contributions, even if regular contributions are pre-tax.
Plans that don’t already allow Roth contributions will need to add Roth elective deferrals as a contribution type (or remove catch-up contributions if you don’t want to offer Roth contributions).
Watch for additional communication from us about this change and be sure to work with your third-party administrator (TPA) and payroll provider to be prepared.
You can help plan participants create a customized retirement savings plan by encouraging them to log in to the participant website and leverage our new Retirement goals tool.
The Retirement goals tool will prompt participants to enter basic information about where they are today and the retirement they’d like to pursue. From there, the tool will show if they’re on track to reach their goals, signaling when adjustments may be needed.
Online enrollment and other key features can help plan sponsors save time and provide the best experience for participants. Watch for an invitation to join an upcoming webinar and learn how to activate online enrollment.
New options will be available soon, including elimination of collecting backup documentation and allowing participants to self-certify, to help ease administrative efforts for plan sponsors and process hardship distributions faster. Watch for more information coming soon.
Beginning in 2026, catch-up contributions made by employees with FICA (Federal Insurance Contributions Act) compensation greater than $145,000 (to be adjusted for inflation) in the prior year will be required to be made as Roth contributions, even if regular contributions are pre-tax.
Plans that don’t already allow Roth contributions, will need to work with their third-party administrator (TPA) to add Roth elective deferrals as a contribution type (or remove catch-up contributions if you don’t want to offer Roth contributions).
Watch for additional communication from us about this change and be sure to work with your payroll company to be prepared.
In the months ahead, PlanPremier plans may experience a short, temporary restriction that will prevent certain transaction requests, including investment allocation changes, requesting or approving loans and distributions, and submitting contributions.
We’ll notify impacted plans of the maintenance ahead of time to minimize any inconveniences.
Our fully automated, digital participant engagement program will soon be available for SIMPLE IRA Plus. ICanRetire is designed to help participants take control of their financial future and add value for plan sponsors.
Eligible employees can benefit from targeted emails that encourage them to begin saving for retirement, increase contribution levels and more. They’ll also have access to a wealth of educational content that’s designed to be fun and approachable.
ICanRetire is research-backed and behavior-focused to help enhance employee engagement at no additional cost.
The Reports & Analysis section on the plan sponsor website will be updated in June 2025, providing a more robust reporting experience. If you have any saved templates, they won’t carry over. Please take time now to document any templates you have.
You can help plan participants create a customized retirement savings plan by encouraging them to log in to the participant website and leverage our new Retirement goals tool.
The Retirement goals tool will prompt participants to enter basic information about where they are today and the retirement they’d like to pursue. From there, the tool will show if they’re on track to reach their goals, signaling when adjustments may be needed.
Give employees an overview of the enrollment process and encourage them to start saving with these short how-to videos. The videos are available in both English and Spanish.
Watch: How to enroll in your workplace retirement plan
Annual reviews are an important opportunity to demonstrate your value and perform your due diligence. Use our guide and resources to prepare and help plan sponsors assess and improve their plans.
The annual employee contribution limit for 401(k) plans increased by $500 to $23,500. Participants aged 50-59 and 64+ can also make a catch-up contribution of $7,500. And participants aged 60 to 63 in 2025 can make a higher catch-up contribution of $11,250.
To help protect plan participants, we now place a stop-mail indicator on their account if we receive returned mail.
When we place a stop-mail indicator on an account, we’ll notify the plan sponsor and/or third-party administrator by email. They can verify or update the participant’s address online.
A new form simplifies the process of requesting force-out cash distributions and/or automatic IRA rollovers for terminated participants in RecordkeeperDirect plans.
We recommend plan sponsors review their plan document and consult their third-party administrator prior to submitting this request to ensure the vesting information they provide is correct.
The SECURE 2.0 Act marked a significant step toward enabling more small business owners and employees to pursue retirement stability. Get the latest updates on our recordkeeping support to help you take advantage of key SECURE 2.0 provisions.
Are you and your employees still relying on paper forms to enroll or update contribution rates and beneficiaries? These activities can be streamlined through the participant website and app, potentially saving you time and reducing administrative issues. To enable online enrollment for your plan, submit the completed Online Enrollment Authorization form and Participant Data Supplement file.
Review the RecordkeeperDirect Online Enrollment Summary guide to learn more.
Effective January 1, 2025, a provision of the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022 will increase the annual catch-up contribution limit for participants aged 60 to 63.
The increased limit will be the greater of $10,000 or 150% more than the regular catch-up limit in 2025 and indexed for inflation in following years. For plans that offer catch-up contributions, no action is needed for employees to take advantage of the increased limit. However, plan sponsors may need to work with their payroll providers to make sure they account for the new catch-up limit.
Check the status of our recordkeeping support for other key SECURE 2.0 provisions.
Plan manager makes it easy to get RecordkeeperDirect clients up and running with a streamlined digital experience. Let our online tool guide you through the onboarding process — and leave the paper forms behind.
Most new retirement plans established on or after December 29, 2022, are required to automatically enroll employees and automatically escalate their contributions.* We’ve made it easy to offer these plan features and help more employees get started on their journey to retirement.
To learn more about auto enrollment and the services that we offer, check out the RecordkeeperDirect automatic enrollment overview.
Plan sponsors can enable these services by submitting the Auto Enrollment Services Election form and the Participant Data Supplement file.
For clients who want to hire an independent fiduciary service provider, we can now facilitate billing for Mesirow’s services and provide access to ongoing Mesirow fiduciary service reporting via our plan sponsor website.
Fiduciary service providers are unaffiliated with Capital Group and are solely responsible for the services they provide. We don’t receive compensation in connection with any fiduciary provider’s services, nor do we endorse or recommend specific fiduciary service providers.
The IRS recently provided guidance clarifying the timing of when plan forfeitures must be used in qualified retirement plans. Given the additional time provided by the new guidance, we’ll no longer automatically reallocate funds in plan-level expense accounts to participant accounts on an annual basis.
Plan sponsors can still issue payments from the plan-expense account for plan expenses by submitting the Fee payment authorization form. To reallocate funds to participant accounts, please send instruction to RKDirect@capitalgroup.com.
Inspire participants to save more by setting a personalized retirement goal. Our website makes it easy for participants to track their progress each time they log in ― and potentially make changes to improve their projected retirement outcome.
Help save time and money by streamlining the process for plan notices.
We can mail any plan notice that plan sponsors create and upload for $2.00 per mailed notice.
We’ve updated our retirement plan website addresses as shown below. In doing so, we hope to make it easier to do business with us, and more clearly communicate who we are and the products and services we offer. Please be sure to update your bookmarks.
Website
New address
RecordkeeperDirect
Participant
capitalgroup.com/participant/rkd
Plan sponsor
capitalgroup.com/sponsor/rkd
Third-party administrator
capitalgroup.com/tpa/rkd
PlanPremier
Participant
capitalgroup.com/participant/planpremier
capitalgroup.com/participant/planpremier
Plan sponsor/PartnerLink — PlanPremier-Bundled
capitalgroup.com/sponsor/planpremier
capitalgroup.com/sponsor/planpremier
Plan sponsor/PartnerLink — PlanPremier TPA
capitalgroup.com/sponsor/planpremiertpa
capitalgroup.com/sponsor/planpremiertpa
SIMPLE IRA Plus
Participant
capitalgroup.com/participant/simpleiraplus
capitalgroup.com/participant/simpleiraplus
Plan sponsor
capitalgroup.com/sponsor/simpleiraplus
capitalgroup.com/sponsor/simpleiraplus
Give employees an overview of the enrollment process and encourage them to start saving with these short how-to videos. The videos are available in both English and Spanish.
Watch: How to enroll in your workplace retirement plan
Annual reviews are an important opportunity to demonstrate your value and perform your due diligence. Use our guide and resources to prepare and help plan sponsors assess and improve their plans.
We make it easy to connect with a broad range of payroll providers to help plan sponsors simplify contributions and protect sensitive information. Check out the payroll providers available through our network connections and additional providers through Payroll Integrations. In addition to 180 standard integration, we offer 360 payroll integration to further simplify the payroll process for plan sponsors.
Learn more about our payroll integration service and direct vendor connections:
The annual employee contribution limit for 401(k) plans increased by $500 to $23,500. Participants aged 50-59 and 64+ can also make a catch-up contribution of $7,500. And participants aged 60 to 63 in 2025 can make a higher catch-up contribution of $11,250.
Our automated mandatory distribution service makes handling the small balances that employees leave behind easier.
We’ll identify and notify impacted plan participants and process cash-out distributions as needed. And when participants are eligible for a rollover, we’ll roll their balance to an IRA at Inspira Financial, which now has a reduced annual administrative fee of $20 for new account holders.
Learn more about this time-saving service and how to get started.
The SECURE 2.0 Act marked a significant step toward enabling more small business owners and employees to pursue retirement stability. Get the latest updates on our recordkeeping support to help you take advantage of key SECURE 2.0 provisions.
From online enrollment to automatic email notifications, check out these key plan features that can help plan sponsors save time and improve the participant experience.
Effective January 1, 2025, a provision of the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022 will increase the annual catch-up contribution limit for participants aged 60 to 63.
The increased limit will be the greater of $10,000 or 150% more than the regular catch-up limit in 2025 and indexed for inflation in following years. For plans that offer catch-up contributions, no action is needed for employees to take advantage of the increased limit. However, plan sponsors may need to work with their payroll providers to make sure they account for the new catch-up limit.
Check the status of our recordkeeping support for other key SECURE 2.0 provisions.
We’re committed to supporting key SECURE 2.0 Act provisions and making it easy for your plan to comply with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) requirements.
For plans that use our document services, we’ll provide a SECURE 2.0 amendment prior to the IRS extended deadline to adopt the amendment. The amendment will be extensive and include all mandatory provisions, plus any optional provisions adopted by the plan. The fee for this amendment will be $1,250 per plan, billed after the amendment is provided in late 2025 to mid-2026.
For clients who want to hire an independent fiduciary service provider, we can now facilitate billing for Mesirow’s services and provide access to ongoing Mesirow fiduciary service reporting via our plan sponsor website.
Fiduciary service providers are unaffiliated with Capital Group and are solely responsible for the services they provide. We don’t receive compensation in connection with any fiduciary provider’s services, nor do we endorse or recommend specific fiduciary service providers.
We’re enhancing our electronic delivery services of required participant statements and other important plan notices. Currently, new participants who provide a work and/or personal email address receive an initial paper notification by mail that includes information about e-delivery, including how to opt for paper delivery.
Beginning in September, statements, confirmations and plan disclosure documents for new participants with a work email provided by the plan sponsor will be delivered to the work email while the participant is active in accordance with the “wired at work” method permitted by the Department of Labor (DOL).* As a result of this change, new participants will no longer need to receive an initial paper notification by mail which may enable documents to be delivered more quickly.
Note: This enhancement does not impact current participants nor participants who only provide a personal email address. Participants who have already opted for paper delivery will continue to receive documents by mail. Additionally, no changes will be applied to 403(b) plans or plans set up with paper delivery.
Optional automated notice delivery
If a plan uses our optional automated plan notice delivery service, please note that these services will include the same changes.
Inspire participants to save more by setting a personalized retirement goal. Our website makes it easy for participants to track their progress each time they log in ― and potentially make changes to improve their projected retirement outcome.
Help save time and money by streamlining the process for plan notices.
We can automatically create a range of plan notices and deliver them via email, potentially reducing plan costs, or by mail for $2.50 per mailed notice. We can also mail any plan notice that plan sponsors create and upload for $2.00 per mailed notice.
We’ve updated our retirement plan website addresses as shown below. In doing so, we hope to make it easier to do business with us, and more clearly communicate who we are and the products and services we offer. Please be sure to update your bookmarks.
Website
New address
RecordkeeperDirect
Participant
capitalgroup.com/participant/rkd
Plan sponsor
capitalgroup.com/sponsor/rkd
Third-party administrator
capitalgroup.com/tpa/rkd
PlanPremier
Participant
capitalgroup.com/participant/planpremier
capitalgroup.com/participant/planpremier
Plan sponsor/PartnerLink — PlanPremier-Bundled
capitalgroup.com/sponsor/planpremier
capitalgroup.com/sponsor/planpremier
Plan sponsor/PartnerLink — PlanPremier TPA
capitalgroup.com/sponsor/planpremiertpa
capitalgroup.com/sponsor/planpremiertpa
SIMPLE IRA Plus
Participant
capitalgroup.com/participant/simpleiraplus
capitalgroup.com/participant/simpleiraplus
Plan sponsor
capitalgroup.com/sponsor/simpleiraplus
capitalgroup.com/sponsor/simpleiraplus
The annual employee contribution limits for SIMPLE IRA plans are as follows:
These plans can qualify for the higher employee contribution limits of $17,600 (and $3,850 catch-up) by making higher mandatory employer matching contributions of 4% of compensation or nonelective contributions of 3%.
* If allowed by the plan. The 60-63 catch-up contribution limit is effective January 1, 2025.
For greater convenience and security, ACH distributions are now available for participant distributions.
Participants can elect payment by ACH and input their checking or savings account information within the online distribution request process on the participant website. Electronic bank verification is then conducted through a third-party service provider as a fraud prevention measure.
For more information about online distributions and other website features, refer to our participant website demo.
The SECURE 2.0 Act marked a significant step toward enabling more small business owners and employees to pursue retirement stability. Get the latest updates on our recordkeeping support to help you take advantage of key SECURE 2.0 provisions.
With the introduction of Roth employee deferrals for SIMPLE IRAs, plan sponsors can offer participants more ways to save for retirement.
To help you discuss this optional plan feature with your clients, consider using our Roth vs. pretax contributions brochure to highlight the potential benefits of each.
Effective January 1, 2025, a provision of the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022 will increase the annual catch-up contribution limit for participants aged 60 to 63.
The increased limit will be the greater of $5,000 or 150% more than the regular catch-up limit in 2025 and indexed for inflation in following years. For plans that offer catch-up contributions, no action is needed for employees to take advantage of the increased limit.
Check the status of our recordkeeping support for other key SECURE 2.0 provisions.
Beginning in mid-November, SIMPLE IRA participants will have the option of receiving their distribution proceeds via ACH direct deposit to a checking or savings account. This feature — which requires no paperwork — will help participants request distributions with greater convenience and without the risk of having a check mailed to their address of record.
Inspire participants to save more by setting a personalized retirement goal. Our website makes it easy for participants to track their progress each time they log in ― and potentially make changes to improve their projected retirement outcome.
Our new help center is designed to enable participants to find answers to common questions and better manage their retirement accounts. Topics include how to update contribution rates, managing investment portfolios, requesting distributions and more.
We’ve updated our retirement plan website addresses as shown below. In doing so, we hope to make it easier to do business with us, and more clearly communicate who we are and the products and services we offer. Please be sure to update your bookmarks.
Website
New address
RecordkeeperDirect
Participant
capitalgroup.com/participant/rkd
Plan sponsor
capitalgroup.com/sponsor/rkd
Third-party administrator
capitalgroup.com/tpa/rkd
PlanPremier
Participant
capitalgroup.com/participant/planpremier
capitalgroup.com/participant/planpremier
Plan sponsor/PartnerLink — PlanPremier-Bundled
capitalgroup.com/sponsor/planpremier
capitalgroup.com/sponsor/planpremier
Plan sponsor/PartnerLink — PlanPremier TPA
capitalgroup.com/sponsor/planpremiertpa
capitalgroup.com/sponsor/planpremiertpa
SIMPLE IRA Plus
Participant
capitalgroup.com/participant/simpleiraplus
capitalgroup.com/participant/simpleiraplus
Plan sponsor
capitalgroup.com/sponsor/simpleiraplus
capitalgroup.com/sponsor/simpleiraplus