Coffee with a NIPA Member
NIPA's New Feature - Coffee with a NIPA Member
"Coffee with a NIPA Member" is a feature published in NIPA News and posted to NIPA's Web site that spotlights a different member each month. If you're interested in being spotlighted, e-mail Jenny Schooley at jschooley@nipa.org.
In a brief interview with a NIPA member, Charanjeet Singh, APA, looks back on his 11 years in the pension industry and the trends and developments that he has noticed. Singh also describes his experience as being a NIPA member and the value he has received from his membership.
Q: How did you get involved in the pension and benefits industry?
Singh: I went to grad school at Arizona State University in Mathematics. When it was time to start looking for a job, one of my professors suggested looking into the actuarial profession. I started with Arizona Qualified Plan Services in 1997 two weeks after graduation. The rest, as they say, is history.
Q: Please provide a little detail on your company: its name/how many employees you work with in the company?
Singh: I work for Union Bank of California Retirement Plan Services, at the division known as TruSource (formerly CNATrust). We are currently undergoing a divestiture of our retirement business, with operations set to wind down by the third quarter of 2008. A substantial portion of our business was acquired by Prudential Retirement Services in November 2007.
Currently there are approximately 100 employees in our division
Q: What trends/developments are you noticing in the industry?
Singh: There is a trend of consolidation among large bundled providers. It appears that economies of scale can be achieved in this space if there are more than 1 million participants on the books.
DB(k)s appear to be catching on among small professional groups. Experienced industry observers see a large untapped market potential in this area.
There has never been a better time to be employed in the retirement profession. To paraphrase a quote from one of my peers, "the Congress, the Treasury, and the Department of Labor, appear to be hard at work on guaranteeing future employment for employee benefit professionals over the past several years."
Q: What are some issues facing pension administrators in the future? How do you think NIPA can help?
Singh: Education is one of the biggest challenges faced by pension administrators. How do you deliver quality professional education to a pension administrator who, for example, is a busy mother of two, who can scarcely manage her time between her job and her duties towards her family? I believe NIPA with the outstanding efforts of Kim Martin, the new education director, has already begun to address this and other similar concerns in revamping the examination structure for the APA designation.
While there always will be an element of sacrifice and give-and-take on a personal basis in order to further one’s career, the more organizations like NIPA recognize such issues early and stay ahead of the trends, both pension administrators and NIPA will together be successful.
Q: How and when did you get involved with NIPA?
Singh: I had early encouragement from my employers to take the NIPA exams. I was lucky to have either a cost sharing arrangement, or full cost reimbursement from my employers which enabled me to complete the exams in 2001. After I earned my APA designation, I was approached by one of the examination committee volunteer organizers to get involved. I helped set some questions from chapters related to controlled groups and affiliated service groups, as I was interested in those topics at the time. I have been involved with NIPA ever since. Lately, I have been a regular at the annual Business Management Conference (BMC) held in Arizona in January each year..
Q: How has NIPA helped you personally and helped your business grow and be more competitive?
Singh: Personally, NIPA has helped me build a solid network of contacts all over the country. I can count among my strong acquaintances TPAs from the farthest corners of the country (and abroad!).
From a professional standpoint, each NIPA conference I have attended gives me more material and knowledge to help me better perform at my job, be it the latest compliance or regulatory issues, trends in recordkeeping system usage, business growth (marketing), or measuring employee performance.
Q: What value does NIPA provide to the retirement plan community?
Singh: NIPA provides yeoman service to the varied needs of the retirement plan community:
- Adds immense measurable value to the professional growth of pension administrators by offering the nationally well-recognized APA designation, and through continuing education opportunities at conferences and web-based seminar offerings.
- Adds intrinsic professional value by providing networking opportunities and a forum for sharing best practices at NIPA conferences
- Provides opportunities for volunteering through its many activities throughout the year.
Bio
Charanjeet Singh, APA is Vice President, manager of institutional retirement platforms at Union Bank of California Retirement Plan Services in Costa Mesa, California. There, he manages a team of administrators who administer plans tied to specific asset management partners. At Union Bank he also serves as a business analyst and customers’ liaison with the information technology staff. He has been a full member of NIPA since 2001, and a regular attendee of the annual Business Management Conference in Scottsdale, Arizona since 2005. Charanjeet was formerly employed by AQPS in Phoenix, Arizona (1997 – 1999) and later at CNATrust in Costa Mesa, California (1999-2004) which was later acquired by Union Bank of California.
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