RFM ConnectTM

Providing essential pensions information

Three distinct areas:

1. RFM Connect Intuitive navigation

Design, Manage, Deliver: three links to a mine of information

2. RFM Connect Share Secure access to shared documents and correspondence

3. RFM Connect Tools Helping you manage, deliver and design your retirement plans effectively

Price guide

How to subscribe

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Design

Manage

Deliver

Tools

Share

What is Hewitt’s RFM Connect service?

InformationHewitt’s RFM Connect service provides subscribers with easy and timely access to all essential pensions information, including:

the latest news on UK legislation; best practice guides; trustee requirements; working documents; profiles of social security and employee benefits around the world; and a wealth of other useful education and reference material and tools.

Electronic ToolsAs well as easing the headache of keeping up-to-date with the rapidly changing pensions framework, RFM Connect also delivers a range of value-added electronic tools such as E-Learning, a secure and fully interactive document and advice repository, and e-mail bulletins keeping subscribers informed about the latest developments and issues in the pensions industry.

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Supporting PartnershipBy providing a forum for sharing information, RFM Connect is a cornerstone of Hewitt’s pension service, supporting the Hewitt service and the working practices of our consultants and giving access to all of the work that Hewitt carries out with clients.

Three Distinct AreasThe complete RFM Connect service consists of three distinct areas:

RFM ConnectRFM Connect ShareRFM Connect Tools

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What is Hewitt’s RFM Connect service?

RFM Connect is our client-facing website, providing clients with up-to-date information and statistics, client-specific tools and a secure tailored website containing information and working documents relating to specific schemes.

The site is accessed at www.hewitt.com/rfmconnect and will be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

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1. RFM Connect

The RFM Connect homepage, providing access to a mine of specialist expertise and knowledge

The information needs of employers and trustees are complex and the demand for specialist expertise and knowledge is constantly growing. For employers, the financial management of retirement plans requires attention and expertise in a wide range of subjects, such as strategic design, cost and risk management and effective delivery.

As a result, these functions are beginning to be managed separately or outsourced to specialist providers. The trustee role is also acquiring more responsibility for cost and risk management and operational delivery.

To meet these increasingly complex needs, RFM (Retirement and Financial Management) Connect is divided into three broad categories to help clients Design, Manage and Deliver their retirement programmes.

This structure enables all parties to focus on their primary areas of interest and move faster to the information needed. They may also navigate through the site using the Search feature.

Consistent FormatThe information and tools within each of these three areas are designed within a consistent format. The following sections are common to them all:

Quick factsContains regularly updated facts and figures that are easily accessible and useful for designing, managing or delivering retirement benefits. The facts differ on the Design, Manage and Deliver tabs and some facts provide links to more detailed information.

HeadlinesOffers an automatic list of the most recent five items posted to Knowledge or Survey content for Design, Manage or Deliver categories.

Tools/Your toolsLists any client-specific tools available for use as well as providing a link to further information about the tools that can be provided.

Content categoriesNavigates users to areas containing Knowledge, Surveys, Facts and Figures, Case Studies and Links as well as offering an alternative link to Tools. >>

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Intuitive navigation

RFM Connect contains daily news, legislative news, technical documents, bulletins, teleconference announcements, facts and figures, surveys, case studies and links to other websites.

All information provided on RFM Connect is housed in a Hewitt Lotus Notes database and, with the exception of some of the information in Quick Facts, is produced by Hewitt. This information can be seen by all users. The website’s design does not allow the posting of client-specific information in these areas.

For ease of access, this content is organised within the Home, Design, Manage and Deliver tabs of the website.

The Design, Manage and Deliver tabs each contain Quick Facts and Headlines information. Other information is categorised as Knowledge, Surveys, Facts and Figures, Case Studies and Links

Each of the Design, Manage and Deliver areas has unique knowledge categories. A document may be posted in multiple categories, which are flexible and can change over time, as well as on multiple Design, Manage and Deliver tabs, allowing the user to locate information in various ways.

For example, if a user selects Surveys from the Manage tab, the page will list surveys that are related to managing retirement benefits first, followed by those relating to design or delivery. >>

The Manage tab homepage demonstrating ease of access

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Design, Manage, Deliver: three links to a mine of information

KnowledgeRFM Connect’s essential reference library, the Knowledge section gives access to a wealth of information on subjects from legislation and research to the interpretation of topical issues. For ease of access, it is organised within ten main Knowledge cubes, under clear keywords such as investment, legislation, governance or compliance.

Regular News UpdatesHewitt Updates keep you informed of key developments in retirement plan management:

Daily News uses material from many industry media sources to provide a snapshot of current issues affecting the pensions industry.

Legislation Updates (previously Technical News) uses Hewitt’s fortnightly legislative updates from London to keep you informed about significant events affecting the UK workforce and workplace.

Surveys Surveys produced by Hewitt (or in association with others) are categorised according to their relevance to Design, Manage or Deliver topics. The user can then expand or collapse the list. As with Knowledge topics, if a survey relates to multiple areas, it is listed more than once.

Different types of survey information are posted. If a survey is free and has both a detailed report and an overview, the user can view the survey and the overview documents. Where the full results are only available for purchase, a summary of the survey is published freely as an overview as well as information on how to purchase the survey.

Facts and Figures Each of the Design, Manage and Deliver areas has its own Facts and Figures category, providing a quick route to essential statistics and data organised into three cubes: financial markets; government limit; and government indices. Appropriate documents are posted in multiple categories.

To see our latest Facts and Figures summary for 2006/2007 click here.

Case Studies Case Studies of Hewitt projects can be accessed via the Case Study link in Design, Manage and Deliver. As with Surveys, if a Case Study relates to multiple areas, it is listed more than once. Most recent Case Studies are shown first and the order is defined by the user’s access route to this page.

Links Links to other selected useful web sites not requiring user registration are provided via the Links tab in Design, Manage and Deliver.

Your Hewitt Team LinkClients who have access to Tools or the Share tab on RFM Connect can choose to have a Your Hewitt Team link from the RFM Connect home page. This link provides a list of Hewitt associates on the client team, with contact information and hot-linked e-mail addresses.

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Share is a secure website allowing easy and efficient communication between your own staff across different locations, your Hewitt consultants and other approved users. Your website is tailored to your requirements and contains shared working documents, information and advice, providing everyone with clear and current information about the latest issues and activities. A secure discussion area may also be provided.

Share has a number of features including:

Secure FilingShare functions as an effective and highly secure electronic filing system with comprehensive cross-referencing, which holds all scheme documents centrally, including attachments, graphs and tables. Documents may be created and edited by any party with the appropriate access, allowing the system to operate as a full document repository for all parties involved. This allows clients, third parties and their Hewitt consultants full access.

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2. RFM Connect ShareSecure access to shared documents and correspondence

Example of a Scheme Rules document, demonstrating how we can make this work for you

E-mailE-mail and response facilities allow easy communication between all authorised parties with greater security than internet e-mail. The highly secure environment means that users can operate and share personal or commercially sensitive information with complete confidence.

Access ControlYou can assign different levels of access to groups of users so that documents are only visible to those with appropriate responsibilities. These features enable effective and timely working between groups of people on current projects, whilst maintaining the confidentiality of information.

Section/Chapter/IndexDocuments are categorised by Section/Chapter (keyword) and Index, which allows users to carry out detailed searches across all the data on the system to which they have access. This ensures rapid access to any relevant historic or current documents and is an extremely valuable tool, ensuring that users both within and outside your organisation do not overlook potentially important issues.

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The Tools section of the RFM Connect website can be provided as part of your individual setup, sometimes at additional cost. It provides easy access to a bespoke selection of Hewitt’s web products or tools designed to help you design, manage and deliver your retirement plans effectively. The tools are laid out in three sections:

1. Tools for Design – helping you to align with your business strategies to manage workforce issues at acceptable financial risk and highest perceived value...

Global InquirerWith corporate governance in the spotlight and financial reporting requirements in flux, you need to know every detail of your global HR plans, policies, and practices – what they cost, how they compare to competitive practices, and whether they align with corporate philosophy. Global Inquirer (GIQ) is a flexible, web-based tool that lets you keep an inventory of benefit plan and compensation information from your worldwide sites. This enables you to view and compare site information easily, develop summary reports, and combine information for specific purposes, such as consolidating retirement plans for accounting purposes.

The programme can be fully customised to your organisation and help you to gain control over your global benefit and compensation programmes.

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3. RFM Connect ToolsHelping you Design, Manage and Deliver your retirement plans effectively

Illustration of a Projection Model This tool illustrates an interactive five year projection of FRS17 accounting numbers including Balance Sheet, Profit & Loss charges and Statement of Total Recognised Gains and Losses (STRGL). It highlights the sensitivity of the pension elements occurring in company accounts to the principle assumptions of discount rate and expected return on assets – as well as the sensitivity to the returns actually achieved by the pension scheme assets.

Web TRACKER Web TRACKER is a new interactive web application that is delivered through RFM Connect. It enables trustees and companies to monitor the financial position of their pension arrangements on a regular basis – Web TRACKER is updated daily. It is customised to your particular requirements and is able to track how certain financial metrics move over time, including the movement in a pension scheme’s funding level and accounting cost.

Via the web it is possible to change, in real-time, the period the movement in a scheme’s financial metrics is shown over. In addition, to enable users to gain a better understanding of the factors affecting the financial position of their pension scheme, Web TRACKER will quantify the contribution of different factors to the movement in the scheme’s financial position. For example, what impact has contributions from the employer had? Has asset performance been beneficial? Have movements in interest rates helped?

Protection cost Protection cost is a consulting tool developed to help trustees and company directors alike monitor the cost of insuring their scheme using market instruments called “Credit Default Swaps”. These instruments pay out upon the insolvency of the sponsoring employer. We use the market price of these instruments and calculate the cost of purchasing sufficient asset to insure the scheme up to solvency on an insurance company basis.

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Example of TRACKER chart

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Scorecard The Hewitt Scorecard is a Hewitt consulting tool developed to consider the issues surrounding Sponsor Risk. We have created a series of measures to enable the client to see where they lie against their peers. So rather than see an absolute measure of the risk posed to a scheme through the sponsoring employer becoming unable to support the scheme, we see a ranking against your selected peer group on each measure - which moves with the funding level, investment strategy and benefit provision of the scheme, and inancial performance and market capitalisation of the sponsoring employer.

Penicillin Penicillin enables consultants to explore and discuss a wide range of issues facing the pension schemes they advise. It is an Excel model which models the development of a pension scheme over time and reports on measures of interest. Penicillin is suitable for live use in front of a client. It has so far been used primarily for benefit review work and new business pitches, with very favourable results.

Trustee Knowledge & Understanding Checklist Trustees now need to comply with the new Code of Practice on Trustee Knowledge and Understanding (TKU). Hewitt’s on-line self-assessment survey can help. Designed using the TKU checklist, the survey provides a training needs analysis which you can use to identify skills gaps within your trustee body.

Country ProfilesWhether you are responsible for the design or management of international benefit plans or the operation of arrangements for internationally mobile employees, it is critical you understand the laws regulating employment, compensation and benefits in countries where your company has, or plans to have, operations. Country Profiles is designed for this purpose, providing users with up-to-date guidance on all relevant tax and employment laws; social security and other statutory requirements; and regulatory initiatives in more than 60 countries in which global companies commonly operate.

This valuable source of data will support key strategic decisions; it will keep you up to date with changes in the regulatory environment of a country and enable you to verify any information provided by your overseas operations.

The service includes a Country Profile for each of the countries covered and also includes timely information on key country-specific developments together with regular summaries of recent themes in technical and legislative developments. >>

2. Tools to Manage – helping you to take financial control and keep risks to a minimum…

Investment Manager EvaluationMonitoring investment managers effectively is a daunting task. It takes time to evaluate each manager, identify key issues, and make informed decisions. Investment Manager Evaluation, Hewitt’s monitoring solution, can help by providing timely and informed assessments of your investment managers. By identifying key issues, you control the agenda at trustee meetings, confident that you are focussing on the right issues and making timely decisions.

Governance Self AssessmentBy October 2006, trustees will need to comply with the new Code of Practice on Trustee Knowledge and Understanding (TKU). Working with our consultants, Hewitt’s on-line self-assessment survey can help. Designed using the TKU checklist, the survey provides a training needs analysis and, on a higher level, an assessment of trustee governance.

Financial Development ReportThe Financial Development Report (‘FDR’) is a concise, regular update on the financial heath of your scheme. It can be updated on an ad hoc basis, or more regularly (for example, Quarterly, or just before each Trustee meeting). It uses our TRACKER modelling tool to approximately trace the development of your scheme’s assets and liabilities since your last actuarial valuation, and presents this information in graphs and tables together with explanatory text on changing market conditions and other pertinent factors.

CashflowThe ‘cashflow model’ consists of several parts and does more than its name suggests. Different parts of the model work together to:

Project benefit cashflows for a pension scheme under given economic and demographic assumptions. Discount those liability cashflows to provide a market-consistent valuation. Show the sensitivity of the cashflows and asset and liability values to changing market conditions. Suggest a sensible bond portfolio to closely hedge the liabilities.

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3. Tools for delivery – helping you to do it right and do it efficiently – providing benefit programmes that are understood and appreciated…

Fund Delivery The Fund Delivery Service is an innovative service that solves many of the practical problems and inadequacies that currently exist for pension schemes when implementing their desired investment strategies.

The Service can enhance a pension scheme’s performance by delivering suitable investment diversification, selecting and monitoring appropriate investment managers, and operating in the ongoing investment and disinvestment of scheme assets efficiently.

Integrated seamlessly with third party pension scheme delivery services for maximum efficiency and effectiveness, the Fund Delivery Service allows pension scheme trustees and their members to stay firmly in control of their investments.

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Some areas of RFM Connect are offered on a subscription basis, so that users can choose those that meet their specific business requirements.

Standard charges for the RFM Connect range of services are as follows – although a number of items are inclusively available to existing Hewitt clients or new Hewitt clients:

RFM Connect:£14,000 per annum for up to 20 users, or £21,000 per annum for 21-50 users.

RFM Connect Tools:Charges vary, please contact your Client Manager or the Consulting Systems Management Help Desk on +44 (0) 1372 733173.

Web Tracker:£ per client scheme.

Country Profiles: £1,500 per annum for up to 10 users.

Trustee Knowledge & Understanding Assessment: £1,000 >>

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Price guide

To subscribe to the service and to begin to use it for your organisation’s benefit contact:

Consulting Systems Management Helpdesk + 44 (0) 1372 733173

rfmconnnectuk.enquiries@hewitt.com

Hewitt Bacon & WoodrowParkside House Ashley Road Epsom KT18 5BS

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How to subscribe