Providers of retirement plans are facing increasing pressure to modernize loan and distribution processing in 401(k) and other retirement systems to improve efficiency, accuracy, and compliance. Legacy processing environments often mean manual processes and fragmented legacy systems, which mean long turnaround times and a high error rate. This paper proposes a Quality Assurance (QA) automation approach to update these critical processes. We design and implement an automated test and processing framework that leverages behavior-driven development and state-of-the-art test automation tools to enable straight-through processing and comprehensive verification of loan and distribution transactions. The method was applied to real retirement system environments with much shorter processing cycles and quasi-elimination of processing errors. Results demonstrate that automation-driven modernization can provide 50% faster processing, improved compliance with regulatory requirements, and improved participant satisfaction. The findings of the research have significant implications for the modernization of financial technology, illustrating how QA automation can bridge the gap between legacy retirement platforms and the demands of contemporary financial services, while ensuring robust compliance and reliability.

Retirement Plan Loan Processing, CARES Act Distribution Adaptation, Financial Services Automation, Risk Management in Retirement Systems, OmniScript Integration, Mainframe Testing, Legacy System Modernization, Straight-Through Processing

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