BENEFITS DIGEST

What happens when a Trump Account’s investments drift outside the permitted limits? Retirement-industry commenters want a correction process and protection for trustees relying in good faith on public investment information. Other requests go further. Vanguard sought room for bonds and Coinbase for cryptocurrency, although the statute restricts the eligible investments. The October 20 comment deadline has passed. For providers building these accounts, the distinction matters between changes Treasury could make through guidance and changes that would require Congress.

Invesco's summer survey of 517 DC participants found interest running ahead of understanding. Asked to identify private-market asset types, participants averaged 3.4 of 5. Seventy-eight percent flagged private equity, but only 41 percent recognized commercial real estate, and 28 percent called cryptocurrency a private asset. Ninety-three percent understood the higher-fee, potentially-higher-return trade-off. What would help, participants said: clearer risk and return explanations (43 percent) and real-world examples, and 65 percent expressed interest in a target-date fund with a modest private-markets allocation. Employees may need basic explanations of these investments before choosing them.

The Senate voted 50 to 49 to advance the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, short of the 60 votes needed. Retirement industry groups had hoped to attach legislation allowing 403(b) plans to offer collective investment trusts. PLANSPONSOR reports that the failed vote and the limited time left before the midterms make passage through that bill look unlikely this Congress.

New NIRS survey shows deepening concerns about retirement viability in current economy, plus a distrust of AI financial advice and crypto investments.

Lawmakers found bipartisan ground on retirement-plan and small-business financing reform, but split sharply over private markets, crypto oversight and risks facing ordinary investors.

In June, the House Committee on Ways and Means held a hearing on a collection of bills that would create a new policy framework for taxing digital assets.

As we previously reported, following an executive order issued by the Trump Administration last year, there has been a recent trend encouraging access to alternative assets through retirement

A legal expert says that advisers who understand the workings of digital assets and ERISA rules will be ‘invaluable’ to plan fiduciaries.