Defined Contribution Plan

Making America's cornerstone of retirement savings work

Defined contribution plans - mostly 401(k) and profit sharing--have come to dominate the retirement savings landscape in the U.S., and have taken on a primary role in how workers save for retirement.* Making a defined contribution plan work for your employees requires good plan design, administration and communication.

* United States Government Accountability Office, GAO-11-333 Private Pensions, March 2011.

Reporting and recordkeeping services

Designed to make defined contribution plan management and reporting easier for you, the Merrill Lynch recordkeeping platform focuses on delivering detailed, accurate and dependable features:

Advice Access

Advice Access* delivers personalized planning, investment advice and strategy implementation for employees, including discretionary account management. Based on participant account information, plan provisions and other employee-provided information, Advice Access provides:

• Unbiased savings and investment recommendations
• Reallocation and rebalancing of participant accounts
• Access to PersonalManagerTM, a managed account solution that can be used as a qualified default investment alternative (QDIA).

Advice Access is available via the Web, the Retirement & Benefits Contact Center, Interactive Voice Response, or by working directly with a Merrill Lynch Financial Advisor. Advice Access is provided at no cost when bundled with recordkeeping services.

Advice Access makes an impact

• More than 185,604 participants have used the advice service¹
• After being available for at least three years in the plan, Advice Access was adopted by 47% of participants²
• 33% of our DC clients offer it in their plans³

* The Advice Access service uses a probabilistic approach to determine the likelihood that participants in the service may be able to achieve their stated goals and/or to identify a range of potential wealth outcomes that could be realized. Additionally, the recommendations provided by Advice Access do not consider an individual's comfort level with investment risk, and may include a higher level of investment risk than a participant may be personally comfortable with. Participants are strongly advised to consider their personal goals, overall risk tolerance, and retirement horizon before accepting any recommendations made by Advice Access. Participants should carefully review the explanation of the methodology used, including key assumptions and limitations, which is provided in the Advice Access disclosure statement. It can be obtained through Benefits OnLine or through your Bank of America Merrill Lynch Representative.
IMPORTANT: The projections or other information shown in the Advice Access service regarding the likelihood of various investment outcomes are hypothetical in nature, do not reflect actual investment results and are not guarantees of future results. Results may vary with each use and over time.

¹ As of June 30, 2011, excluding defaulted participants and a stand-alone advice client.
² Adoption means implements advice and utilizes one of the implementation options. As of June 30, 2011.
³ As of June 30, 2011.

Defined Contribution Plan designing and monitoring for performance

To help you fulfill your obligations as a plan fiduciary, we work with you to incorporate plan features, flexible investment options, modern behavioral approaches to employee participation and investing, and a transparent fee structure.

Because of our commitment to working with clients for long-term effectiveness of their 401(k) plan, we developed the Financial Wellness Monitor ^TM. The Monitor provides an analysis of plan participant data, revealing the degree to which plan design and directed education are driving employees to positive behaviors in creating wealth for retirement. The Financial Wellness Monitor, available for plans that use our Advice Access service, enables us to identify, and help you implement, plan performance and communication solutions.

Flexible, appropriate investment options

Regardless of the size of your business or the complexity of your retirement plans, Bank of America Merrill Lynch can help you develop the investment mix that is appropriate for your defined contribution plan.¹ Our open investment architecture platform includes*:

¹Bank of America Merrill Lynch and its representatives provide only general information and/or materials regarding qualifies retirement plans and do not provide investment advice or recommendations. All qualified retirement plan investment decisions are to be made by the Plan Sponsor.
²The Retirement Bank Account is an FDIC-insured, interest-bearing, money market bank deposit account. It is not a mutual fund.
* As of 3/31/2011
**Publicly traded company stock

By screening thousands of investment options based on their objectives, cost, performance, volatility and management, and any other criteria you identify, we can help you create a 'core' menu that offers your participants diversification and choice with your company's best interests in mind. With a core menu in place, you can select from the broadest offerings in advice and investment flexibility in the industry.

Powerful automatic plan features

Automatic features are known to have a significant impact on plan metrics - and on the overall financial wellness of your employees. We can implement any of the following automatic features:

• Automatic enrollment - Eligible employees are automatically enrolled in the retirement plan with their contributions invested in the default fund. They can opt out or change their rate or investments at any time.
• Automatic deferral increase - Participant deferral rates automatically increase periodically to help ensure adequate savings levels.
• Automatic investment selection - We will work with you to select a default investment that is prudent for your employee demographics; including a number of investments that can qualify as a qualified default investment alternative (QDIA).

Should you prefer a traditional plan design and enrollment process, our targeted communications are known to guide participant learning and decisions. Our experience in combining 401(k) plan elections with annual health care open enrollment has shown substantial increases in participation and contribution rates.

Compliance and consulting services

Our compliance and consulting specialists can work with you, your legal counsel, plan consultants or other resources, to help you meet regulatory requirements or take your plan to a new level of effectiveness.

How we can help:

As one of America's largest banks, trustee services are a core competency at Bank of America, N.A. We can provide non-discretionary trust services, including asset safekeeping, trust administration services, tax preparation and reporting, for your defined contribution plan.