As of January 1, 2013, IBM will no longer give employees their 401(k) match with each pay cycle. Instead, the technology behemoth will make one large lump-sum payment to employee accounts on December 31 of each year.

When a company provides nearly $900 million in matching contributions to employee 401(k) plan accounts, that company might be forgiven from a financial perspective for wanting to hold onto that money as long as possible.

That certainly seems to the motivation behind IBM's recent announcement that it would no longer be matching employee 401(k) contributions each pay period. Instead, the company will be making a single annual match each December 31st starting next year. Moreover, employees who leave the company either voluntarily or involuntarily before December 15 of any given year will receive no match at all for that year.

Courtesy of Business Finance Magazine