Bank of America says its Personal Retirement Strategy, an online investment advisory program built into workplace 401(k) plans, has passed $100 billion in total assets. The bank announced the milestone on October 1, five years after the program launched in 2021. The tool, known as PRS, sits inside the retirement accounts of employees whose employers use Bank of America’s own recordkeeping platform. The bank’s announcement gives the size of the program, but it does not say what the advice costs savers or how accounts have performed.
The people affected are employees enrolled in 401(k) plans that Bank of America administers through its Workplace Benefits business and that offer PRS. For them, the program raises a decision rather than a deadline: whether to keep managing the account alone, follow the program’s recommendations, or hand the account to a managed service that charges extra. Anyone in another company’s plan is not covered by the announcement, and the bank has not said how many plans or participants use PRS.
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Three ways to use the program
According to the Bank of America release, participants can pick one of three paths. They can manage investments themselves, they can put the program’s asset allocation recommendations into practice, or they can enroll in Merrill Managed. The release describes PRS as combining interactive planning tools, professional investment management and retirement income features inside the workplace plan, with personalized, goal-based strategies and scenario modeling that projects outcomes.
Merrill Managed is the one tier with a price attached. The bank describes it as a discretionary managed account service, meaning the manager makes the portfolio decisions and handles ongoing monitoring and rebalancing, and says participants pay an additional fee for it. The release does not state the fee. That leaves a saver weighing the option without a number from the announcement, and the plan’s own disclosure documents become the place to find it.
The bank also says Merrill Managed has passed $10 billion in assets under management. Stacy Bucchere, a managing director of Workplace Benefits at Bank of America, said that reaching $10 billion in managed account assets in five years “demonstrates the growing demand for solutions that combine personalized advice with professional investment management.” The release does not say how much of the $100 billion sits in the managed tier versus the self-directed and recommendation-only options, so the two figures cannot be added or compared directly.
Turning savings into income with 401k Pay
A newer piece of the program is 401k Pay, introduced in 2025, which targets the stage after saving ends. The bank says it helps participants convert retirement savings into income by recommending withdrawal amounts, projecting how long those withdrawals could last, modeling different scenarios and setting up recurring payments. Participants can use it with either professionally managed or self-directed investments, according to the release.
That feature speaks to the question many people near retirement face: how much can be taken out each month without running dry. The release does not publish how many participants have used 401k Pay, what withdrawal rates it recommends or what assumptions drive its projections. John Quinn, also a managing director of Workplace Benefits, said the milestones reflect “the growing value employees place on personalized retirement guidance and the trust employers place in innovative workplace benefits.”
The bank points to its own survey as evidence of demand. In the Bank of America 2026 Workplace Benefits Report, 70% of respondents named saving for retirement as their primary financial goal. That is a statement of what employees care about, not a measure of how many are satisfied with the advice or better off after using it. The release offers no returns data for PRS accounts, no comparison with other plans, and no count of people who left the program.
What $100 billion does not show about fees
A pool of assets that size is a measure of reach, and the cost to savers depends on fees. The U.S. Department of Labor’s booklet on 401(k) plan fees explains that investment fees are paid indirectly, taken out of investment returns, while plan administrative costs are borne either by the employer or charged against plan assets. The department’s own fee example starts with a $25,000 balance, 35 years to retirement and 7% average returns. At 0.5% in annual fees the account grows to $227,000, and at 1.5% it grows to $163,000, a 28% reduction in the balance at retirement.
Those figures are the Labor Department’s illustration of how a one-point gap compounds, and they are not the cost of PRS or Merrill Managed, which the bank has not disclosed. Plans must give participants information on fees and expenses before they direct investments, and the department says participants get a quarterly statement showing fees paid from their individual account. Those documents, not the milestone announcement, would show what a managed tier takes from a given balance.
Automated advice has limits that regulators have spelled out. The Securities and Exchange Commission’s Office of Investor Education and Advocacy described a robo-adviser in a February 2017 bulletin as an automated digital investment advisory program that gathers financial information through an online questionnaire and builds a managed portfolio. The bulletin says its recommendations are limited by the information provided, which is typically self-reported, and that some of these services have not been tested in stressed markets.
Questions to put to a plan before choosing the managed tier
The SEC’s investor bulletin on robo-advisers is the free official starting point, and it lists what to ask of an automated adviser: how much human interaction is available, what information the tool uses for its recommendations, what investment approach and products it offers, how often it rebalances, and whether withdrawals or closing the account carry penalties. The bulletin also warns that compensation can create conflicts of interest when a service is tied to particular products, and that fees can depend on account size and change over time.
For an employee in a plan that offers PRS, those questions translate into a short list of documents. The plan’s fee disclosure should show what the additional Merrill Managed charge is and how it compares with the plan’s other costs. The quarterly statement shows what has actually been deducted. The bank’s materials on 401k Pay should show which assumptions drive its withdrawal recommendations.
The open question is what the extra fee buys. Bank of America reports the size of the program and of the managed tier, and quotes two of its own executives on demand, but it has not published returns, the fee amount or participant numbers. Until those appear, the Labor Department’s 28% fee illustration is the clearest guide to why that missing number matters over decades.
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This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by The Money Overview’s editorial team.
