Franklin Templeton today announced a strategic investment and collaboration with California-based vWise, Inc. to integrate technology, predictive analytics, behavioral finance insights and a personalized investment solution designed to improve retirement outcomes in Defined Contribution (DC) Plans. Franklin Templeton’s patent-pending proprietary Goals Optimization Engine (GOE^TM), combined with vWise’s Experience Platform, will use real-time participant data to intelligently deliver personalized experiences that drive participants to take actions that better prepare them for their specific retirement journey. In addition, Mary Beth Glotzbach, Senior Institutional DC Strategist for Franklin Templeton, has been named to the vWise board.

“The workplace is the financial hub for many American workers and our collaboration with vWise will enable us to deliver on our commitment to personalization,” said Glotzbach. “We can now bring to DC plan participants the same level of personalized recommendations we’ve all come to expect in other aspects of our lives. That’s especially important for participants approaching retirement, who will benefit from a more customized approach to meet their changing needs.”

Using data to create customized communications and solutions for DC participants, providing a broad set of investment tools to construct those solutions, and employing technology to deliver the right message at the right time, work together to enable participants to make decisions that are appropriate for their household retirement situation. vWise has a proven track record of increasing deferral and participation rates and driving adoption of in-plan features that help optimize participant outcomes.

vWise technology enables financial service providers to aggregate data and build participant profiles, apply a customized rules engine that selects the best “call to action” and delivers a personal experience. The recorded behavior and transaction then builds out a more robust profile. The vWise Experience platform is designed to be effective in institutional, advisor sold and retail financial verticals.

“Our open-platform approach is the key to unlocking more targeted communications and, in turn, more engaged participants,” said David Ferrigno, CEO of vWise. “Aggregating data from multiple sources – our clients, their clients and their partners – allows vWise to deliver personalized communications based on relevant demographic and financial characteristics. Investor ‘calls to action’ can be both simpler to act on and to implement.”

“Our collaboration with vWise will help to operationalize our GOE methodology in the institutional DC market,” said Harshendu Bindal, Managing Director and Head of Digital Strategy and Wealth Management for Franklin Templeton. “vWise will work directly with the plan sponsor and recordkeeper to establish data transfer protocols that pull the necessary participant data to create targeted and personalized communications. This collaboration is part of Franklin Templeton’s commitment to advancing personalization and improving DC participant experiences and outcomes.”

“We are excited to welcome Franklin Templeton as an investor in vWise and a strategic partner,” added James Liberi, Chief Revenue Officer at vWise. “We look forward to working with the Franklin team to expand their plan sponsor and participant capabilities. As the demand for personalization extends into our financial lives, we are thrilled to be partnering with a forward thinking, technology centric asset manager like Franklin Templeton.”

GOE is an open-architecture offering that combines a proprietary algorithm based on award-winning research¹, detailed capital market expectations, and a set of parameters for each goal provided by the investor. GOE is designed to take these parameters and optimize the asset allocation to maximize the probability of successfully achieving the goal by applying machine learning. DC participants will have the option to provide additional information, and then choose what portion of their account balance they would like to invest in Franklin Templeton’s model portfolios.

Investing in digital wealth management capabilities continues to be a top priority for Franklin Templeton, as wealth management technology is becoming increasingly integral to the firm’s mission of helping people achieve the most important milestones of their lives. By deploying digital wealth capabilities to deliver more personalized advice to all, including the underserved, and helping fintech partners achieve more scalable growth, Franklin Templeton aims to improve outcomes for more people. The firm’s digital wealth capabilities enable the company to bring integrated investment and wealth solutions to clients. Beyond GOE, which delivers personalized and dynamic goals-based asset allocation advice at scale, Franklin Templeton is developing a fintech ecosystem that provides access to innovative talent disrupting financial services and equipping the company to become the investment firm of the future.

About vWise

vWise optimizes investor outcomes through interactive, data-enabled personalized experiences that drive informed decision making. Utilizing the way today’s investors consume content, the vWise Experience Platform enables asset managers and financial service providers to efficiently deliver personalized digital experiences to complement existing sales and marketing efforts. For more information, connect with vWise or visit http://www.vWise.com.

About Franklin Templeton

Franklin Resources, Inc. [NYSE:BEN], is a global investment management organization with subsidiaries operating as Franklin Templeton and serving clients in over 165 countries. Franklin Templeton’s mission is to help clients achieve better outcomes through investment management expertise, wealth management and technology solutions. Through its specialist investment managers, the company brings extensive capabilities in equity, fixed income, multi-asset solutions and alternatives. With offices in more than 30 countries and approximately 1,300 investment professionals, the California-based company has over 70 years of investment experience and approximately $1.5 trillion in assets under management as of May 31, 2021. For more information, please visit franklintempleton.com and follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.

1. A New Approach to Goals-Based Wealth Management, by Sanjiv R. Das, Daniel Ostrov, Anand Radhakrishnan and Deep Srivastav received the 2018 Harry M. Markowitz Award from the Journal of Investment Management and New Frontier Advisors, LLC. This is an annual award honoring Dr. Harry M. Markowitz, a Nobel laureate in economics, for his legacy and to support future research and innovation in practical asset management. Candidates are taken from among papers published in the Journal of Investment Management each year.

Any information, statement or opinion set forth herein is general in nature, is not directed to or based on the financial situation or needs of any particular investor, and does not constitute, and should not be construed as, investment advice, forecast of future events, a guarantee of future results, or a recommendation with respect to any particular security or investment strategy or type of retirement account. Investors seeking financial advice regarding the appropriateness of investing in any securities or investment strategies should consult their financial professional.

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