Understanding when collaboration becomes conflict—and how to protect your plan, your participants, and your fiduciary outcomes.
The retirement plan provider landscape has shifted. Recordkeepers are no longer just administrators—they’re expanding into managed accounts, rollovers, financial wellness, and wealth management services that increasingly overlap with the traditional advisor role. While often framed as “co‑opetition,” these relationships can quietly erode advisor independence and drive higher participant costs.
If you are responsible for selecting or overseeing retirement plan providers, this guide equips you with practical questions, clear warning signs, and a framework for evaluating advisor independence in today’s evolving market.
This guide answers these questions + much more
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What is changing in the retirement plan advisor and recordkeeper relationship?
Recordkeepers have expanded beyond plan administration into managed accounts, rollovers, and financial wellness—placing them in direct competition with advisors they once supported.
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What is “co‑opetition,” and why should plan sponsors care?
While often described as collaboration, co‑opetition can mask conflicts where advisors become economically dependent on recordkeepers, weakening fiduciary independence.
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How does this impact plan sponsors and participants?
These relationships can lead to higher participant costs, reduced transparency, and less aggressive fee benchmarking—often without clear disclosure to plan committees.
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How can plan sponsors identify conflicts of interest?
By examining advisor compensation models, marketing subsidies, participant‑level revenue streams, and whether proprietary services are embedded into plan pricing.
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What is the fiduciary‑only alternative?
A fiduciary‑only advisory model refuses revenue from recordkeepers or proprietary products, benchmarks fees independently, and provides full transparency into compensation.
Download the free guide to explore these questions in detail and learn how to safeguard your plan’s fiduciary outcomes.
Multnomah Group is a registered investment adviser registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Any information contained herein or on Multnomah Group’s website is provided for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. Investments involve risk and, unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed. Multnomah Group does not provide legal or tax advice.
