Finch

Our Head of Partnerships, Runae Lee, caught up with retirement industry veteran Sean Kelly AIF®, CPFA®, to capture the pulse of this year's NAPA 401(k) Summit. After three days of conversations with recordkeepers, advisors, and TPAs, some clear themes emerged. 🔹𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗲𝘁𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗮 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗻𝘂𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗴𝗲. Asset managers are increasingly focused on accessing participant and plan data to build customized retirement solutions that help workers save more effectively. This has evolved from a nice-to-have to table stakes for delivering personalized retirement experiences. 🔹𝗔𝗜 𝗮𝗰𝗰𝗲𝗹𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝘀 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗵𝗮𝗽𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝗱𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘆. From ChatGPT to AI agents and assistants, we're witnessing rapid adoption of generative AI tools that are creating real efficiencies across retirement plan operations. And guess what powers these AI innovations? You got it—data.

Last week, I had the pleasure of chatting with Keith Sonderling, Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Labor. We had a wide-ranging conversation about garnishment policies, labor statistics, retirement policy, and hiring a Chief Economist for the DoL. These discussions reaffirmed something we deeply believe at Finch: employment isn’t just a category of the economy — it’s the foundation. Thank you Jason Corsello and Thomas Otter at Acadian Ventures for making this connection!

Shoabe here, Head of Engineering @ Finch 👋 Had the privilege of hosting Jaren Glover in our office today, who shared some raw, unfiltered wisdom from scaling infrastructure at Robinhood. Wanted to share some takeaways that resonated with our team: 🔥 Startups are hard! They're a grind, but they're rewarding. The impact you can make and the relationships you build at a startup are unparalleled with any other experience. 🎯 Stay laser focused on impact and making progress. It's easy to get distracted by what other people are doing and things that are going on all around, but keep steady and just worry about you and your teammates, focus on making an impact, and as you make progress good things will come. ⚙️ In the early days, it's more about traction than efficiency. Don’t optimize prematurely. Handhold customers. Love your early adopters. Give them white glove support. This is not wasted time; it's foundational. 🧱 Startups are humbling. You might write something you later throw out. That’s not failure, it’s progress. Having to rebuild something you previously built is a privilege that you get to earn, it means you've made it to the next level. 🌊 Sometimes the hardest part is just going through transitions. A startup has ups and downs, successful ones just have more ups than downs, especially more important ups than downs. Each wave is like a different chapter with different challenges, new and old faces, etc., there's a lot of growth that can be extracted from withstanding through and experiencing the different phases of a startup's journey. These insights couldn't have come at a better time for us at Finch as we scale our infrastructure for financial data connectivity.

Is your retirement operation ready for 19 million new participants? As of January 2025, every new 401(k) and 403(b) plan must automatically enroll eligible employees, adding an estimated 19 million participants to the retirement ecosystem virtually overnight. For recordkeepers and TPAs currently managing enrollment manually, this tsunami of new participants is mathematically impossible to handle without automation. Our guide provides a clear roadmap for retirement providers facing this seismic shift. We've distilled complex compliance requirements into actionable strategies that protect your business while creating capacity for growth. Inside, you'll discover: ▪️Which plans are exempt (and which aren't) ▪️Why SMB-focused providers face the greatest operational burden ▪️The five critical responsibilities administrators must manage under Section 101 ▪️How bidirectional payroll integrations solve the auto-enrollment compliance challenge As the connectivity platform trusted by leading recordkeepers like Ubiquity and 401GO, we've seen firsthand how automation transforms compliance operations. Read the full guide to ensure your operation is leveraging SECURE 2.0 as a competitive advantage. ⬇️

Our latest research uncovered something that should concern every CISO, HR leader, and benefits provider: 66% of employers admit to sharing sensitive payroll data through workplace messaging platforms and text messages. Let that sink in. Two-thirds of companies are transmitting highly confidential compensation information through channels designed for casual conversation. Even more concerning: this isn't happening because integrations don't exist. Nearly 70% of employers report having some form of integration between their systems - yet they're still resorting to manual methods. Why? Because today's integrations aren't eliminating manual work: ▪️Employers use an average of THREE different methods to share the same payroll data ▪️Companies with more complex benefits (like ICHRAs or equity) use FOUR+ methods ▪️While 81% of retirement providers can technically integrate with payroll, only 62% of employers successfully use these connections ▪️Email remains a primary data-sharing method for 62% of employers The data reveals a critical gap between theoretical connectivity and practical reality. Having an integration isn't enough if it's too difficult to implement, too limited in functionality, or too unreliable to fully trust. For benefits providers, this presents both a challenge and an opportunity. 💡Those who can deliver truly seamless connectivity, not just another partial solution that forces employers to use Slack as a backup, will capture the 92% of employers who rank integration capabilities as their top purchasing priority.

We are excited to announce our partnership with Finch, a leading platform for connecting HR, payroll, and benefits systems. This collaboration enables seamless payroll and HRIS integrations within our CORE platform, facilitating the automation of data exchange, enhancing accuracy, and minimizing manual work for retirement plan providers. Now, recordkeepers, plan providers and TPAs can: ✅ Automatically import census and payroll data ✅ Send deductions and contributions back to payroll ✅ Minimize manual tasks and enhance participant experiences With Finch’s powerful API connectivity, we’re making retirement operations smarter, faster, and more connected. This is a major step in building a connected, intelligent retirement ecosystem that’s truly #ReadyForTomorrow Learn more - https://lnkd.in/gWay2paH #RetirementTech #Fintech #PayrollIntegration #HRIS #COREPlatform #CongruentSolutions #Partnership

🚀 We shipped some major updates in Q1, including: ✅ Expanding our network coverage ✅ Growing our impact in retirement ✅ Improving our core product experience Here’s a quick rundown of what’s new and improved: 📈 𝗜𝗻𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺 𝘂𝘀𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗿𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗮𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀 We invested heavily in connection success and long-term stability as we saw our active employee connections grow nearly 40% in Q1. These included: • Improvements to the employer onboarding experience in Finch Connect • Behind-the-scenes updates to maintain connections after authentication, like: – Extended connection lifespans – Improved fallbacks 🏦 𝗙𝘂𝗿𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗶𝗻 𝗿𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗿𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗶𝗻𝗳𝗿𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 To help more administrators keep pace with demand and compliance, we: • Expanded our partnership with PensionPro • Launched a new partnership with ASC • Rolled out new and improved platform capabilities: – New: Payroll Mapping, Employer Match – Improved: Deductions processing times shortened to 2 days 🌐 𝗘𝘅𝗽𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗢𝗽𝗲𝗻 𝗘𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗼𝘆𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗘𝗰𝗼𝘀𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗺 • Migrated Justworks connections to OAuth for greater security and reliability • Added two new providers to our network: – ECCA – Innova Payroll For all the details, check out our full Q1 recap 👉 https://lnkd.in/esxgR6Nx

"It took about a month for companies to gather payroll information from different entities, submit it to us, and then we had to manually reconcile it. It never became perfect." When the "Father of the 401(k)" Ted Benna described early retirement plan administration, it was striking how far we've come — and how much remains unchanged. In the 1980s, retirement administration meant: ▪️Paper-based enrollment forms ▪️Manual data entry into payroll systems ▪️Physical paperwork for investment changes ▪️Month-long waits for contribution processing ▪️Perpetual reconciliation challenges Four decades later, many recordkeepers and TPAs still struggle with these same fundamental data challenges. While the system is no longer paper-based, the underlying connectivity issues that persist create delays, introduce errors, and require manual intervention all too often. This is precisely why we built Finch: to solve the employment ecosystem’s data fragmentation problem — one that has plagued the retirement industry since its inception. By connecting directly to 220+ payroll and HR systems, we're helping innovative companies automate what once took weeks of manual effort. The evolution from paper to digital wasn't enough. True transformation requires seamless, automated connectivity between systems. 📽 Watch our full conversation with Ted Benna to learn how retirement administration has evolved over four decades and where it's headed next: https://lnkd.in/ewwRHhK2