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Spectrum Update and Service Enhancements Q2'2018

Dear Friends,

We wanted to provide our clients and professional advisors with a brief update on our firm. Q2'2018 was a major quarter for Spectrum. In summary, Spectrum won a technology innovation award from FIS, was twice recognized by Charles Schwab, finalized its System and Organization Controls (SOC) Report, and experienced wide adoption of new product and service offerings. Equally exciting - Spectrum celebrates its 40th birthday on July 3, 2018. We plan to recognize this milestone at the Spectrum Open Charity Golf Tournament and Dinner Event, in August. We are incredibly grateful for our wonderful clients, professional advisors, and staff members who have supported our firm over the years.

FIS, a global leader of financial technology, recognized Spectrum in the 2018 FIS Impact Awards. Spectrum earned the award for making innovative use of FIS technology to simplify origination and servicing of individual retirement accounts. The FIS Foundation donated $10,000 to charitable organizations designated by award winners. Spectrum designated $5,000 to the American Cancer Society and $5,000 to the Pano Koumantaros Cancer Research Fund. In addition, Spectrum was honored to have won a top partner award from Charles Schwab for surpassing $1 Billion in Schwab custody assets. At its 2018 Retirement Plan Summit, Charles Schwab also recognized Spectrum for closing the highest percentage of new business opportunities through the Charles Schwab retirement plan leads program. We thank all of our strategic partners who collaborated with us toward these accomplishments.

Spectrum is proud to host the 13th Annual Spectrum Open Golf Tournament and Dinner Event. Proceeds from the Spectrum Open benefit the Pano Koumantaros Cancer Research Fund, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. The Fund is named after Spectrum's Founder, Panayotis "Pano" Koumantaros, who lost a 6-month battle with bladder cancer. The Spectrum Open celebrates Pano's love of life, family, friends, good food and wine, and golf. Each year we are thrilled and touched by the strong community support of this event. Registration for the 2018 Spectrum Open is now available, so please consider attending.

Spectrum remains committed to innovation and service enhancements. Spectrum completed the annual SOC Audit for its 401k/DC Plan Recordkeeping Services and has a SOC 1 Report available for clients and their retirement plan auditors. The SOC 1 Report helps to streamline retirement plan audits. Our consultants observed that cyber security has become a concern to many of our clients. We are happy to report that our retirement plan websites will soon feature multi-factor authentication. Additionally, Spectrum will soon distribute cybersecurity awareness training to workplaces. Multi-factor authentication and cyber security awareness training will help to safeguard retirement plan accounts from potential fraudsters. Released earlier this year Spectrum Payroll360™, has been widely adopted by our clients. Spectrum Payroll360™ features bi-directional data integration with major payroll vendors. With it, employers can automate retirement plan contribution reporting and funding processes. Imagine - you never again need to manually upload payroll data! Finally, we have delivered several demonstrations of our workplace financial wellness program, Spectrum FinWell™. The responses to Spectrum FinWell™ have been positive, and we have several open proposals for this service. If you are interested in learning more or know an organization that could benefit from any of our products or services, Spectrum's online proposal system makes it easy to request information.

Our product and service enhancements pipeline remain full, so stay tuned. We will continue our next quarterly business update in early October. If you would like to hear from us more regularly, please connect through Spectrum's social media channels. We always welcome feedback, so feel free to contact us on any matter. Again, we thank every client and professional advisor for placing their confidence and trust in our firm. We look forward to the second half of 2018 and beyond.


Sincerely,

Petros P. Koumantaros
Managing Director & CEO


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ERISA Workplace Retirement Plan Limits

The federal government annually publishes updated qualified retirement plan limits, which impact the contributions, benefit accruals, and compliance of ERISA covered qualified retirement plans. The below tables summarize the most significant changes in recent history.


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Spectrum is a B2B consulting firm, which enables American Workers to plan and save towards a dignified financial future by designing, administering, and operating the ranges of retirement and financial plans for U.S. employers.

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