Fidelity is a leader in offering innovative smartphone features, such as trading, research, money management, and portfolio views - both for individuals and workplace benefits plan participants. After the successful 2013 launch of the company's NetBenefits Smartphone App - which has received more than 825,000 downloads2 - the company is now expanding its capabilities for the workplace by launching a tablet app designed for today's increasingly mobile workforce.

Consumer demand for tablets is driving incredible adoption of the devices, far outpacing the interest in traditional personal computers. Combining this adoption with the number of employees who do not have access to keyboards and screens at their workplace - such as those at retail stores, on manufacturing floors, in health care environments and classrooms - makes it all the more important to build new capabilities that meet today's evolving marketplace.

"In creating this app, we focused on how people interact with tablets, which we find is frequently in an interactive, two-way experience," said Charles Berman, senior vice president of digital platforms at Fidelity Investments. "Tablets are becoming the device of choice when people want to utilize services, play games, schedule trips, read books and share memories. Apps today must meet peoples' expectations while delivering an entertaining and fulfilling experience. Our new NetBenefits tablet app does exactly that."

Fidelity's new app joins the company's existing mobile applications to ensure all participants have access to its benefits plan over the device of their choice. The company will extend its NetBenefits mobile experience to additional platforms in 2014.

New Capabilities Designed Specifically for the Tablet Customer

As part of Fidelity's workplace guidance experience, Plan for Life, the iPad app brings to the forefront innovative new features such as:

An engaging peer comparison capability enables people to evaluate aspects of theof their portfolio - savings rate, account balance and rate of return - in relation to people in similar cohorts, such as age or region.
Broader access to Fidelity's NetBenefits Library, a one-stop, easy-to-use destination for educational guidance about a person's employee benefits, from retirement plans to health savings accounts. The Library includes financial and health care content - videos, podcasts, workshops, tools and articles - and filters for faster searching.
Enhanced data visualization of a participant's investment account portfolio, contribution rate, balance and personal rate of return, specifically designed for the tablet environment.

Hundreds of In-Person Interviews Helped Shape the New App

Fidelity's User Experience Design (UXD) team performed more than 600 in-person customer interviews over 10 months to seek direct feedback on the evolving app design3. The team utilized an agile design process that took place in both technical environments and consumer-friendly labs. Color schemes, user instructions, and functionality, such as swipe and tap locations, were tested and retested with iterative feedback directing changes in real-time. The result is an app designed in partnership with the people who will use it most.

"These new capabilities together with our agile design continue Fidelity's digital transformation journey, reinforcing how its customers benefit from the latest advances in technology, mobile access and intuitive thinking," said Berman.

During 2014 more enhancements will complement these capabilities and those recently announced, such as Easy Enroll, a patent pending offering that simplifies the enrollment process by allowing employees to join their workplace savings plan with just a few taps on their tablet or device. This and other new technologies help to ensure our participants have the richest mobile experience possible at their fingertips.

App Now Available to Millions of Retirement Plan Participants

The new NetBenefits for iPad app is now available to Fidelity's 16.6 million workplace plan participants and may be downloaded for free from the App StoreSM