The Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) has given life insurers, and other financial services companies, an early Christmas present: an expression of interest in the idea of letting financial institutions start multiple-employer retirement plans.

EBSA has just helped its parent, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), complete work on a set of final regulations that encourage small employers to offer association retirement plans — by treating small employers that join a multiple-employer plan (MEP) as one big employer, for some federal retirement plan regulation purposes. Now, EBSA is seeking comments on a related idea: letting life insurers and other commercial entities start independent, open MEPs, separate from any other association or trade group.

The idea is that a financial institution’s open MEP could simply offer a large number of small employers the ability to offer a pooled defined contribution retirement plan, without the small employers having to attend more annual conventions, participate in more fundraising drives for worthy causes, or participate in more grassroots public awareness campaigns simply to get access to the pooled retirement plan program.

EBSA officials say DOL is organizing a request for information about the financial institution MEP concepts in response to comments on the draft version of the new MEP regulation.

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