J.P. Morgan enhances SmartRetirement

J.P. Morgan Asset Management announced the launch of enhancements to its suite of SmartRetirement target date funds, incorporating new spending capabilities to support participants through their whole retirement journey – from saving during their working years to making the most of those savings once they retire. The new enhancements will complement the firm’s SmartRetirement Plus solution announced in 2021, which pairs J.P. Morgan Asset Management’s SmartRetirement and spending intelligence with a protected lifetime income option, AIG Life & Retirement’s IncomEdge Control annuity issued by The Variable Annuity Life Insurance Company. J.P. Morgan is currently in dialogue with multiple institutional clients regarding SmartRetirement Plus.

Once SmartRetirement investors reach retirement, the fund will be managed to allow investors to withdraw a portion of their investment in the fund each year until the target maturity year set at 35 years after retirement. In connection with this, the fund will produce an annual sample withdrawal amount. The sample withdrawal amount seeks to estimate a percentage of a participant’s account balance that they could choose to redeem during that year, while still allowing for redemptions in future years through the target maturity year. The solution is delivered through an integrated digital experience that includes an interactive calculator to evaluate spending tradeoffs in retirement.

The new retirement spending capabilities have been developed by harnessing JPMorgan Chase’s unique access to spending data from nearly half of U.S. households to better understand real-life participant behavior and spending patterns in retirement. This is backed up by the firm’s research revealing that nearly seven out of 10 defined contribution plan participants are concerned about outliving their money in retirement, while 85 percent say that they would likely leave their balances in their plans post-retirement if there was an option to help generate monthly retirement income.

The firm’s recent behavioral research, Retirement by the Numbers, informed updates to the SmartRetirement glidepath, with increased allocations to return enhancing assets driven by increased income needs in retirement. The research found that retirees need to replace more than 90% of their working income as they transition into retirement compared with the conventional wisdom of 70-80%.

“Retirees are increasingly looking to their employers to help them plan their income needs in retirement, and through our access to real-world spending data across JPMorgan Chase, we are uniquely positioned to build this innovative solution to help Americans navigate retirement. Through integrating retirement income into our award-winning SmartRetirement target date series, we are not only helping people build adequate savings during their working years, but also giving them confidence to spend down in retirement.” – Andrea Lisher, Head of Americas Client for J.P. Morgan Asset Management.

“The SmartRetirement glide path is built to withstand a range of market cycles and conditions to improve retirement outcomes. The integration of retirement income capabilities will help to ensure participants now have an innovative, intuitive post-retirement income option.” – Dan Oldroyd, portfolio manager and Head of Target Date Strategies, J.P. Morgan Asset Management.