Resource Library

Interest in emergency savings programs is growing amid an increasingly holistic approach to workplace savings programs, in part due to a recognition that reducing retirement plan leakage is a key way to produce positive retirement outcomes, and emergency savings programs may help.

The value chain in financial markets has both upstream and downstream participants. At one end of the value stream, those who are upstream are entrepreneurs creating value. Successively farther downstream are early-stage investors and intermediaries; they are followed by institutional investors, including pension funds, at the end of the chain. When pension funds are at the downstream end of the value chain, they do not benefit much from value creation farther upstream, due to the drag of high fees often charged by intermediaries such as mutual funds.

With the gradual disappearance of defined benefit (DB) pension plans for workers in the private sector, and their replacement by defined contribution (DC) retirement plans and individual retirement accounts (IRA), at the same time as life expectancy is increasing, analysts and public policymakers have grown concerned with the loss of automatic lifetime income flows to retirees aside from Social Security.

The third and final paper of the CIT series synthesizes findings from the CIT Survey and 15+ interviews to explore CIT demand, benefits, challenges, and innovation within DC plans. This paper looks ahead at what could be next for CITs based on survey findings, third-party research, and information gleaned through the interviews we conducted with industry stakeholders.

Forward-looking in its orientation, this piece explores where CITs are headed as regulatory, technological, and market forces continue to evolve. It offers projections and analysis on how CITs will shape the next generation of DC plan investment menus.

DCIIA announced the appointment of Nikki Pirrello as Strategic Advisor and incoming Chief Operating Officer, effective January 2026, bringing over 20 years of institutional investment and retirement industry experience, including a recent tenure as President and Publisher at Pensions & Investments. She will also serve as Executive Director of the DCIIA Plan Sponsor Institute.

In RRC interviews to recordkeepers, one simple question was asked: What keeps you up at night when you consider the opportunities and threats to the DC recordkeeping industry, and your firm, specifically? Collectively, the executives described a model of interrelated factors (often countervailing) they are trying (or need) to optimize to survive (or thrive) in this highly competitive marketplace: the Recordkeepers’ Efficient Frontier.