J.P. Morgan Asset Management broadens in-plan income access on Retirement Link

J.P. Morgan Asset Management is broadening the income shelf on Retirement Link, the platform it runs for 401(k), 403(b) and nonqualified plans. A Tuesday announcement said the offering will carry wider access to SmartRetirement Lifetime Income, a strategy that uses a target-date format to establish a stream of income in retirement, and that plan sponsors will get easier required-minimum-distribution processing, better implementation and ongoing operations support, and more participant education and plan communications, including additional multilingual options.

The access runs through Empower, which the firm describes as its recordkeeper of choice since 2012, under what the announcement called an expanded connection between manager and recordkeeper. Steve Rubino, who heads retirement at J.P. Morgan Asset Management, said in the release that helping participants achieve a secure retirement sits “at the core of everything we do,” and Joe Smolen, president of Empower Workplace Solutions, tied the relationship to a shared commitment to helping individuals reach their financial goals.

The income push follows the firm's 2026 Defined Contribution Plan Participant Survey, which the announcement cites as the reason for the revised focus. That survey found 91% of participants showed interest in having in-plan guaranteed retirement income solutions, and 75% said they would likely keep their assets in the plan if it already offered an income solution.

Those two figures are worth reading closely, because the survey asked about guaranteed income while the product named in the announcement is a target-date-format strategy. The coverage does not say whether SmartRetirement Lifetime Income carries an insurance guarantee, what it costs a plan, or whether a sponsor would install it as a default or leave it to participant election. Those are the terms that decide whether an in-plan income sleeve clears a menu committee, and none of them appears in the announcement.

The processing updates sit on the administrative side of the same list, arriving alongside the income access rather than in a separate release. Bundling easier RMD handling with income access suggests the distribution machinery is being tuned for participants who stay in the plan past retirement, though the coverage does not describe how the RMD changes work or what they cost a sponsor.

The announcement carried no price for the lifetime-income option and no date for a wider rollout, and stated interest in a survey is not the same as what participants choose when an income option reaches a real menu. For a sponsor weighing an income slot, the 75% retention figure is the one the firm is asking it to believe.