Patent ID: 7398245

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for providing loans to a participant having assets in a benefit plan account comprising: initializing loan-fund account data stored in a computer database upon establishing a loan-fund account for the participant which loan-fund account is associated with one or more investment vehicles of the benefit plan account, wherein the initializing further comprises funding the loan-fund account by investing participant assets in the one or more investment vehicles, wherein the one or more investment vehicles associated with the loan-fund account are segregated from other investment vehicles of the benefit plan account, and wherein money is cable of being drawn for loans from the loan-fund account, wherein the loan-fund account is managed by an investment manager; generating request-data representing requests to the investment manager to: (i) transfer funds from the loan-fund account that is less than a full amount of funds in the loan fund account to settle redemptions made by the participant's use of at least one access vehicle; or (ii) accept funds into the loan-fund account upon the participant's repayment of redemptions; updating the stored loan-fund account data with redemption data, fund transfer data, and fund acceptance data, whereby loan redemptions and repayments occur without access to assets in other of the investment vehicles of the participant's benefit-plan account not associated with the loan fund account using a redemption/repayment accounting software process associated with the loan fund account that computes a current balance in the loan-fund account based on funds transferred from assets in the loan-fund account to settle redemptions and funds accepted as assets into the loan fund account as repayments of redemptions; and administering the loan-fund account so that it is capable of being portable and does not require the participant to pay off the transfer of any funds from the loan-fund account to settle redemptions made by the participant's use of the at least one access vehicle upon employment termination of the participant.