DRESHER, PA — Ascensus is launching a platform designed to connect its more than 16 million workplace savers with financial advisors during job changes, retirement and other financial transitions, expanding its role from retirement-plan infrastructure into the link between workplace savings and wealth management.
The workplace-to-wealth platform gives advisors and financial institutions new ways to engage retirement-plan participants while allowing Ascensus partners to determine how savers are served and which advisory options they are offered.
Ascensus is initially rolling out the model with select advisory firms and expects to establish connections with additional firms and financial institutions in the coming months.
The initiative targets a persistent gap in the retirement market. About 63% of active 401(k) participants lack access to a financial advisor, according to the Cerulli U.S. Retirement End-Investor 2025 research cited by Ascensus.
That gap can become particularly important when workers change jobs, approach retirement or consider moving retirement assets, periods when decisions about savings increasingly overlap with broader wealth-management needs.
Ascensus is positioning its existing participant base and relationships with retirement-plan providers as the distribution infrastructure for those connections rather than building a competing direct-advice business.
“We don’t compete with the advisors and institutions we serve,” Dan Morrison, president of retirement at Ascensus, said. “We’re helping bring advisors and savers together.”
The platform combines participant connectivity, advisor-engagement tools, referral workflows and data intended to help connect savers with advisors associated with their retirement plans.
Ascensus is also expanding its participant-facing digital tools with more personalized support, including artificial-intelligence assistance intended to help users navigate financial decisions and reach the advisor serving their plan when guidance is needed.
The company said the platform is designed to operate within applicable data-privacy requirements and preserve existing relationships among participants, employers, advisors and financial institutions.
For financial advisors, the model creates opportunities to maintain or expand relationships with plan participants as their needs move beyond workplace retirement accounts into broader financial planning.
Plan sponsors can use the structure to extend financial-wellness support beyond administration of the retirement plan, while financial institutions gain another channel for engaging participants.
“Workplace retirement plans represent one of the most important opportunities to expand access to financial advice,” said Josh Rundle, Ascensus’ head of investment and wealth solutions.
The rollout reflects increasing convergence between retirement-plan administration and wealth management, with providers seeking ways to retain relationships with savers as assets move through job changes and into retirement.
Ascensus plans to add capabilities and partnerships as adoption of the platform expands.
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