Voya 2014 Annual Report Download - page 39

Retail Wealth Management
Products and Services
Our Retail Wealth Management business offers simple, easy-to-understand products, along with holistic
advice and guidance delivered through affiliated brokers and by online capabilities. Our current investment
solutions include advisory programs, mutual fund custodial IRAs, fixed annuities and brokerage accounts.
The primary focus of our Retirement segment is to serve nearly five million defined contribution plan
participants (as of December 31, 2014). We also seek to capitalize on our access to these individuals through our
Institutional Retirement Plans business by developing long-term relationships and providing individual retail
solutions. We believe that our ability to offer a seamless and integrated approach to an individual customer’s
entire financial picture, while saving for or living in retirement, presents a compelling reason for our Institutional
Retirement Plans participants to use us as their principal investment and retirement plan provider. Through our
broad range of advisory programs, our financial advisers have access to a wide set of solutions for our customers
for building investment portfolios, including stocks, bonds and mutual funds, as well as managed accounts. These
experienced advisers work with customers to select a program to meet their financial needs that takes into
consideration each individual’s time horizon, goals and attitudes towards risk.
Markets and Advisory Services
Retail Wealth Management advisory services and product solutions are primarily sold through our affiliated
distribution group of over 2,200 representatives as well as online via websites. The affiliated representatives help
provide cohesiveness between our Institutional Retirement Plans and Retail Wealth Management businesses and
they are grouped into two primary categories: affiliated field-based representatives and home office phone-based
representatives. Affiliated field-based representatives are registered sales and investment advisory representatives
in our retail broker dealer that drive both fee-based and commissioned sales. They provide face-to-face
interaction with individuals who either participate within or are external to our Institutional Retirement Plans
business and who seek financial advice and retail investment products (e.g., rollover products) as well as
retirement and financial planning solutions. Home office phone-based representatives primarily focus on our
unique growth opportunity of assisting participants in our large recordkeeping plans. They offer the same broad
suite of products and services as the affiliated field-based representatives, but are highly trained in providing
financial advice that helps customers transition through life stage and job-related changes.
In an effort to develop a path for either of these categories of affiliated representatives to offer holistic
retirement planning solutions to participants in our Institutional Retirement Plans, we partner with our
institutional clients to engage participants and offer retirement and personalized financial planning to them as
appropriate to meet the retirement readiness needs of their employees. Our program is designed to engage,
educate, advise and motivate employees to take action that will better prepare them for retirement.
Competition
Our Retail Wealth Management advisory services and product solutions compete for rollover and other asset
consolidation opportunities against asset managers, banks, wirehouses and other broker-dealers who also offer
individual retirement products, all of which currently have more market share than insurance-based providers in
this space. Primary competitors to our Retail Wealth Management business are, in the investor channel, Fidelity,
Schwab, Vanguard, and Merrill Edge, and in the field channel, LPL Financial, Ameriprise, Commonwealth,
Cambridge, Cetera, Morgan Stanley Smith Barney and Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
Our Retail Wealth Management advisory services and product solutions compete based on our consultative
approach, simplicity of design and a fund and investment selection process that includes proprietary and non-
proprietary investment options. The advisory services and product solutions are primarily targeted towards
existing participants, which allow us to benefit from our extensive relationships with large corporate and tax-
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