Bisys Plan Services is positioning itself as the one-stop vendor for community banks, regional brokerage firms, and financial planning firms that have yet to enter the 401(k) business.

The administrator is offering the Single Source 401(k) program to allow these firms to create branded products with minimum up-front costs and use of internal resources. Bisys hopes that these firms will see the program as a low-cost, low-maintenance solution.

"This program is targeted at firms that want to get into the 401(k) market, but balk at the high cost to do," said Christopher Guarino, president of Bisys Plan Services. He added that regional banks with two or three strong funds but without the wherewithal to put together a program are good targets for the product.

"This program lets them create a multi-fund product from up to 20 fund families," said Guarino. The twenty funds include Bisys institutional partners such as American Funds, Putnam, Fidelity and MFS among others, he said. Bisys will continue to leverage the National Securities Clearing Corps's Defined Contribution Clearing & Settlement platform to add more fund families, he said.

Two clients have already purchased the program, although Guarino declined to name the firms. He added that new clients can implement the program in "a weeks".

The Single Source 401(k) includes employee communications, daily valuation, recordkeeping, compliance testing, and 24-hour Internet and telephone access and transaction capabilities at both plan and participant levels. This unique program offers a broad array of investment choices from many of Bisys' current institutional clients and trading partners.

Bisys' sales efforts for the program will be supported by a team of three regional vice presidents who work in the field to assist the distribution networks in closing close business and three in-house executives.

Guarino expects to add two more regional vice presidents in the wholesaling role to support the product down the road. These positions will probably cover the Northwest and Southeast, he said. 

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