At a Nov. 10 meeting of the Oregon Retirement Savings Board (ORSB), the board voted to enter into termination negotiations with Ascensus to end the arrangement under which the firm has been the service provider for OregonSaves.
According to Michael Parker, Executive Director of the Oregon Treasury Savings Network, the termination of the contract with Ascensus will become effective after OregonSaves is successfully converted to a new service provider. The timeline for that conversion “is still being worked out,” but likely will take place “sometime in the middle of 2021.”
Why the change? Parker said that the contract with Ascensus allowed the service provider to renegotiate the revenue and expense terms, and that the provision “was triggered in early 2020.” Nine months of negotiations between the ORSB and Ascensus ensued, but they were not able to agree on new terms for the contract. “Because the parties reached an impasse, the next step was a negotiated termination,” he explained.
At the Nov. 10 meeting, says Parker, the ORSB also voted to direct Oregon Treasury Savings Network staff to enter into contract negotiations with Sumday Administration, a subsidiary of Bank of New York Mellon that currently provides plan management services to the Oregon College Savings Plan.
