The retirement provider industry lags the larger financialservices sector when it comes to advances in mobile platforms, but planproviders are quickly closing the gap, according to oneconsultancy.

Corporate Insight, a New York-based consultancy, tracks thetechnology and communication innovations of 18 of the largestrecordkeepers in the space.

The firm’s most recent Retirement Plan Monitor report documentsthe major enhancements to existing mobile platforms, as well as thenew mobile offerings the biggest brands in the retirement spacehave rolled out in the past year.

Corporate Insight has been tracking the mobile retirement spacefor three years now, according to a company spokesperson. Thislatest report tracks the enhancements and new offeringsin the past year.

Since then, recordkeepers have been busy expandingtheir mobile presence to plan participants, the recent reportfinds.

MassMutual rolled out its new mobile application, while ThePrincipal Financial Group, T. Rowe Price, and TIAA-CREF allintroduced new tablet applications for participants in the pastyear.

Of the firms that already had an existing mobile platform, mostadded enhancements in the past year.

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Charles Schwab and Transamerica added the ability to maketransactions via their mobile applications. Fidelity, The PrincipalFinancial Group, T. Rowe Price, and Voya added to their existingmobile transaction capabilities.

Now, 11 of the 18 providers tracked by Corporate Insight offerthat ability to participants via their phones or tablets.

Of the 18 firms, 11 offer a mobile site, 10 offer phoneapplications, and six offer tablet-optimized applications.

MassMutual’s new RetireSmart mobile app—the only fully new appintroduced in the past year—features “a sufficient amount ofaccount and personal data,” according to the most recent RetirementPlan Monitor report, but doesn’t allow mobile transactions, orprovide retirement estimating tools, calculators, or educationalmaterial.

The new tablet apps introduced by The Principal Financial Groupand TIAA-CREF mirror the firms’ existing phone apps, while T. RowePrice’s new tablet app emulates the firm’s responsive website,according to the analysts.

The ability to make transactions to plans via a mobile device isclearly on the rise. Last year, seven firms offered at least basicmobile transaction capability: Fidelity, J.P. Moran, T. Rowe Price,VALIC, Vanguard, and Voya.

Six of those firms’ applications allow participants to conductcontribution rate changes from their phones or tablets; fourallowed account rebalances; four allow participants to trade outfunds; four featured the ability to change future allocations; andone mobile app included the ability to create loan, withdrawal, androllover requests.

Two recordkeepers have been added to the group tracked byCorporate Insight—Empower Retirement and Prudential. Both offertransaction capabilities on their mobile applications.