A new Pontera and 401k Specialist expert roundtable is examining a question at the intersection of retirement advice, open banking and financial-data infrastructure: can workers independently choose an advisor to help manage their 401(k), and what role should employers play? Former U.S. regulators, fintech policy leaders and practicing fiduciaries argue that existing rules and permission-based technology can support greater participant choice without transferring responsibility to employers.

The debate over who can advise on a worker’s 401(k) is increasingly becoming a technology question as well as a regulatory one.

For 401(k) participants, workplace retirement accounts can represent one of their largest financial assets. Yet those accounts are often managed separately from taxable investments, savings, insurance, debt and other elements of a household’s financial plan. The resulting fragmentation can make it harder for advisors and clients to see the full picture.

Pontera and 401k Specialist are addressing that issue through a new expert roundtable, “Who gets a say in the 401(k)? Technology, trust, and the future of advice.” The discussion brings together former senior officials from the U.S. Department of Labor and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, fintech policy representatives and practicing fiduciaries.

Among the participants are Lisa M. Gomez, former Assistant Secretary of Labor for the Employee Benefits Security Administration; Dan Murphy, a former CFPB official involved in the agency’s personal financial data rights work; Penny Lee, president and CEO of the Financial Technology Association; Brian Vendig, president and chief investment officer of MJP Wealth Advisors; and Ben White, director of Retirement Strategic Partnerships at Pontera.

The central issue is participant choice.

Gomez argues that existing law does not prohibit retirement-plan participants from selecting an outside advisor to provide assistance with their workplace retirement accounts. She also distinguishes that participant-directed relationship from arrangements in which an employer endorses, selects or makes an advisor available to employees.

That distinction matters for plan sponsors. According to Gomez’s interpretation of Department of Labor guidance, including Interpretive Bulletin 96-1, an employer or plan fiduciary does not generally assume responsibility for an outside professional independently selected by a participant when the sponsor has neither endorsed nor arranged for those services.

That is an important distinction in the emerging retirement-advice market because it separates consumer choice from employer sponsorship.

The conversation then moves into a second challenge: how technology can enable that choice without weakening controls around financial data.

Modern financial applications already rely on permission-based data access, authentication, audit trails and mechanisms for revoking authorization. Lee argues that similar principles can be applied to retirement information, allowing consumers to control what information an advisor can access and how that access is maintained.

The concept closely parallels the broader development of open banking and consumer-directed financial data infrastructure.

In banking, consumers increasingly expect financial information to be portable between institutions and applications when they authorize access. Retirement accounts present additional complications because they operate within employer-sponsored plans, fiduciary structures and a specialized regulatory environment.

That makes authorization architecture particularly important.

A financial advisor seeking access to a participant’s workplace retirement account needs more than a simple data connection. The system must establish who authorized access, what information can be accessed, for what purpose, how long permission remains valid and how access can be revoked.

Cybersecurity and liability are therefore central to the discussion. The panel argues that these concerns should be addressed through implementation and controls rather than automatically treated as barriers to participant-directed advice.

Murphy places the discussion within a broader transformation in financial-data policy. Concepts such as informed consent, data minimization, revocation and auditability have become increasingly important as consumers connect financial information to third-party applications.

That creates an opportunity for financial advisors to treat workplace retirement accounts as part of a unified financial-data environment rather than an isolated investment bucket.

Vendig provides a practical example. At MJP Wealth Advisors, he says the firm uses Pontera to incorporate clients’ workplace retirement accounts into a broader financial-planning and portfolio-management process.

The benefit is less about creating another investment account and more about visibility. When a 401(k) remains disconnected, an advisor may have to rely on older account information or provide recommendations that the client must implement independently.

Connecting the workplace account to the broader planning process can allow advisors and clients to consider retirement assets alongside investments, savings objectives, taxes, liabilities, cash flow and long-term retirement goals.

That model reflects a wider trend in financial technology toward holistic financial planning infrastructure. Rather than forcing consumers to manage separate financial relationships independently, fintech platforms are increasingly attempting to aggregate authorized information and make it usable across planning and advice workflows.

The implications extend beyond retirement accounts.

Open banking infrastructure, embedded financial services and digital wealth-management platforms are all built around the idea that financial information can become more useful when it is securely shared between systems at the customer’s direction. Retirement technology adds a complicated layer of employer-sponsored plans and fiduciary obligations, but the underlying demand for better interoperability is similar.

For fintech companies, the opportunity is substantial—but so is the responsibility. Financial-data portability without appropriate permissioning, security and oversight can create new risks. Likewise, AI-powered financial advice could amplify errors if systems operate on stale, incomplete or unauthorized information.

The emerging model is therefore not simply “connect every account.” It is connect authorized data with clear controls and human accountability.

That distinction could become increasingly important as wealth-management firms seek to serve clients across their entire financial lives. Advisors that can securely incorporate 401(k) information into broader planning may gain a more complete view of retirement readiness, while technology providers will need to demonstrate that their infrastructure can satisfy security, privacy and regulatory expectations.

For employers and plan sponsors, the debate offers another perspective. Participant-directed relationships need not necessarily mean employers are selecting or endorsing outside advisors. The critical issue is maintaining a clear boundary between the plan sponsor’s responsibilities and services independently chosen by workers.

The Pontera roundtable consequently points toward a financial-services model in which retirement advice, open financial-data infrastructure and consumer permission increasingly intersect.

The regulatory framework may continue to evolve, but the technology for permissioned access, monitoring and auditability already exists. The more immediate challenge is establishing clear operating models that give workers meaningful choice while preserving the protections expected in a regulated retirement system.

Market Landscape

The U.S. retirement-advice market is moving toward greater account aggregation, personalized financial planning and participant-directed digital services. The challenge is particularly acute for 401(k) accounts because plan structures can make workplace assets operationally separate from a participant’s other investments.

The roundtable’s discussion connects retirement fintech with broader open banking infrastructure and consumer-permissioned financial data. The underlying technology—authorization, scoped access, monitoring, auditability and revocation—is already familiar across digital financial services, although applying it to workplace retirement plans involves distinct regulatory and fiduciary considerations.

For GlobalFinTechEdge, the development is relevant to wealthtech, open banking, embedded finance infrastructure, financial-data portability and banking technology innovation. It also illustrates how fintech providers are increasingly competing on secure data connectivity and workflow integration rather than standalone financial products.

Top Insights

• A Pontera-led expert panel argues that workers can independently select outside advisors, while employers need not sponsor or endorse those relationships.
• Permissioned financial-data infrastructure could help advisors incorporate 401(k) assets into broader investment and retirement-planning workflows.
• Security, authorization, revocation, auditability and data minimization remain critical as retirement accounts become more digitally connected.
• The discussion links workplace retirement technology with broader open-banking trends around consumer-directed financial-data access.
• Advisors face an opportunity to provide more holistic planning when authorized workplace retirement information can be integrated with clients’ broader financial picture.

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