From Vendor to Strategic Partner: The Evolving Partnership of Recordkeepers and Retirement Plan Consultants

The relationship between recordkeepers and plan consultants is changing, whether the industry formally acknowledges it or not.

For years, partnerships were often defined by sponsorships, preferred provider lists, or one-off initiatives that looked good on paper but did little to improve execution at the plan level. That model is breaking down. The pressures recordkeepers face today, margin compression, rising service expectations, data security demands, and rapid plan growth, require something more durable.

What recordkeepers are asking for now is not more vendors. They are asking for partners who understand the operational realities of the business and can operate at scale without adding friction.

“What we need are partners who actually make the work cleaner, not louder.”

Recordkeepers are focused on efficiency, consistency, and accountability. They want fewer handoffs, clearer ownership, and partners who can deliver the same level of precision across plans, advisors, and geographies.

The Limits of the Old Model

Sponsorship-driven relationships are increasingly difficult to justify internally. Recordkeeper leadership teams are under pressure to show ROI, not just activity. That means partnerships need to translate into tangible outcomes, smoother onboarding, better data, lower service burden, stronger retention.

It also means that fragmented relationships with dozens of individual firms create more problems than they solve. Inconsistency at the consultant level shows up quickly at the sponsor level, and sponsors do not distinguish between the recordkeeper and the rest of the ecosystem when something goes wrong.

“From the plan sponsor’s perspective, everyone involved is one team. They don’t care where the handoff failed.”

This is where the expectations have shifted most sharply. Recordkeepers are no longer willing to manage around fragmentation. They want alignment by design.

Why Integration Has Become the Defining Capability

Technology has raised the bar. APIs, automation, and AI are now core to the recordkeeping conversation, but tools alone do not fix broken workflows. Clean data, shared standards, and predictable processes still determine whether a plan runs smoothly or becomes a service liability.

We have found that Recordkeepers want partners who understand their systems, respect their constraints, and can plug in without creating downstream clean-up work. They want fewer exceptions, not more customization that introduces risk.

That requires operational maturity, not just technical knowledge.

Asteri’s Perspective on the Shift

According to Ann Slotwinski, Executive Director of The Asteri Collective, this shift mirrors what she saw firsthand while leading the TPA business at John Hancock.

“Recordkeepers have always valued strong consultants, but the scale and complexity today are different. When I was running the TPA side of the business at John Hancock, it became very clear that consistency and integration were what allowed plans to grow without breaking the system.”

She adds:

“What recordkeepers are asking for now is not unreasonable. They want partners who understand how their platforms actually work, who respect operational guardrails, and who can deliver the same quality experience across the board. That is exactly the gap Asteri was built to fill.”

Moving From Individual Firms to Collective Capability

One of the most consistent themes we encounter is the desire for a single point of accountability for our Recordkeeper partners. They want to know who they are working with, what standards apply, and how issues will be resolved.

A collective model solves for that in a way individual firms cannot. It creates shared expectations around service delivery, data integrity, communication, and escalation. It allows recordkeepers to engage with a coordinated group rather than managing dozens of disconnected relationships.

Just as importantly, it allows plan consultants to show up as peers to recordkeepers, not as vendors competing for attention.

Growth Still Matters, but So Does How You Get There

Plan formation is accelerating. Consolidation is reshaping the market. Wealth, retirement, and benefits are converging faster than most infrastructure was designed to support. None of that is slowing down.

What is changing is how growth is evaluated.

Recordkeepers are looking closely at which partnerships help them scale responsibly, which ones protect service quality, and which ones reduce risk rather than introducing it. The future belongs to organizations that can integrate cleanly, execute consistently, and think beyond individual transactions.

That is the role The Asteri Collective is stepping into, not as another industry group, but as an operating partner built for the realities recordkeepers face now.