First Financial Bancorp 401(k): Principal
First Financial Bancorp 401(k) Savings Plan · FFBC · CIK 708955
Principal is the recordkeeper named on the Form 5500 filed for this plan, the company that keeps the account records. Where to log in, and what the filing says.
The 401(k) employer match
No employer match
First Financial Bancorp's filing discloses no employer matching contribution for this plan.
From the Form 11-K filed June 25, 2026 ↗, covering the plan year ended December 31, 2025. Page data last updated July 28, 2026, when the Form 5500 bulk data was last refreshed. Why filings lag
On this page: what the employer actually paid in · the formula, word for word · when the money becomes yours · who can join · who holds your account · what the plan reports to the DOL · how it compares · what to do next
What First Financial Bancorp puts in, and what the plan costs
What First Financial Bancorp put into the plan, per active participant
$0.28
First Financial Bancorp put $0.28 into this plan for each of its 2,084 active participants in plan year 2024. This is the whole employer side of the plan: matching money, profit sharing, non-elective and safe-harbor contributions, and reallocated forfeitures. The Form 5500 does not separate them, so this is what the employer put in and not the match.
Nothing among plans with 1,000–4,999 participants at banks and lenders put in less per active participant than First Financial Bancorp. The middle plan in that group of 245 reported $3,422. Banks and lenders comes from business code 522110, which First Financial Bancorp entered on its own Form 5500. Sponsors pick that code themselves, so a code that does not describe what the employer does ranks the plan against the wrong companies.
Under a dollar a head is a token amount rather than a contribution programme: a reallocated forfeiture, a rounding, or employer money that sits in another plan of the same sponsor.
What this figure cannot separate: how much First Financial Bancorp pays, and how much it puts in
This is dollars, not a rate. A Form 5500 carries no payroll, so the figure reflects both how much the employer puts in and how much the employer pays: two plans running the same formula report different amounts when one pays better. Crossing the peer group with industry holds most of that difference still, and none of it disappears.
This is one plan year, not an average. A true-up, a plan merger or a one-off contribution moves a single year on its own.
Source: DOL Form 5500 for the plan year ended December 31, 2024, EIN 311042001, plan 002 · DOL EFAST2 ↗
The $0.28 above is the Form 5500 figure for plan year 2024, and it counts every employer dollar on one line. First Financial Bancorp also files a Form 11-K, which states what the employer contributes for plan year 2025: the card below reads $0 a year at a $49,500 salary. That second figure is what the formula pays one worker on that salary, and not an amount either filing reports. The two figures cover different plan years and measure different things, so neither one is the other one corrected.
What First Financial Bancorp puts in
$0
a year, at any salary.
The filing discloses no employer contribution to this plan.
The match paragraph, word for word
“Employer contributions to the Plan are discretionary. Employer contributions, if applicable, are determined in the first quarter of the subsequent year. Participants designate where contributions are invested and employer contributions fully vest upon contribution to the Plan. No employer contributions were made to the Plan for 2025 or 2024.”
What you contribute to collect all of it
Nothing to collect
The filing discloses no employer contribution to this plan, so no contribution rate collects one.
Vesting score
100 out of 100
How fast the employer’s money becomes yours. Higher than 48% of the 369 schedules we have scored.
It measures vesting speed and nothing else. It says nothing about the size of the match, what the plan charges, or the funds inside it.
Share of the employer's money that is the worker's at hire and at each of the first 6 anniversaries: 100%, 100%, 100%, 100%, 100%, 100%, 100%. The score is the average of those 7 readings.
Vesting, word for word
“Vesting. Participants' accounts are 100% vested at all times.”
The wait before the match starts and the year-end true-up appear above when the filing states them. Neither is part of the score, and a filing that is silent on one of them is not a plan without it.
What the plan costs, against plans of its size
25th percentile
$46.43 per participant in plan-paid administrative cost, cheaper than 75% of plans with 1,000–4,999 participants.
What is First Financial Bancorp's 401(k) match formula?
First Financial Bancorp discloses only part of its 401(k) match terms in this filing. Employer money that does not depend on what you put in is not a match, whatever the plan calls it. What counts as a match sets out the difference.
| Rate actually paid this plan yearAs reported in the filing. | No employer contributions were made to the Plan for 2025 or 2024. |
|---|---|
| Conditions | Employer contributions, if applicable, are determined in the first quarter of the subsequent year. |
What the filing says, word for word
“Employer contributions to the Plan are discretionary. Employer contributions, if applicable, are determined in the first quarter of the subsequent year. Participants designate where contributions are invested and employer contributions fully vest upon contribution to the Plan. No employer contributions were made to the Plan for 2025 or 2024.”
Source: Form 11-K filed June 25, 2026, SEC EDGAR, corroborated by the filing's inline-XBRL facts · SEC ↗
What is First Financial Bancorp's 401(k) vesting schedule?
First Financial Bancorp vests employer contributions to the plan immediately: 100% is yours as soon as it is paid in. Nothing is forfeited when you leave, which is not true of the two schedules that vest over time.
| Employer match vesting | Immediate: employer match is 100% vested when contributed |
|---|---|
| Your own contributions | Immediate: always 100% yours |
Vesting, word for word
“Vesting. Participants' accounts are 100% vested at all times.”
Source: Form 11-K filed June 25, 2026, SEC EDGAR · SEC ↗
Who can join First Financial Bancorp's 401(k), and is enrollment automatic?
First Financial Bancorp enrolls new hires automatically at 5% of pay, rising 1% a year to 10% of pay.
| Plan entry | The Plan covers substantially all associates of the Company and its affiliates. There is no age requirement to participate in the Plan. |
|---|---|
| Automatic enrollment | Yes: default deferral 5% of pay; auto-escalation +1%/yr to 10% |
Eligibility, word for word
“The Plan covers substantially all associates of the Company and its affiliates. There is no age requirement to participate in the Plan.”
Automatic enrollment, word for word
“Employees are automatically enrolled at a 5% deferral rate upon becoming eligible to participate in the Plan and they may elect to change or discontinue deferrals at any time. The deferral rate will automatically increase by 1% annually, until the deferral rate equals 10%, unless employee elects a different deferral rate.”
Source: Form 11-K filed June 25, 2026, SEC EDGAR · SEC ↗
Who holds your account
Schedule C of the Form 5500 filed for plan year 2024 reports Principal, filed as “PRINCIPAL LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY”. That is the company paid to keep the account records: what is in an account, what went into it, and usually the site a participant signs in to. The trustee that holds the plan’s assets can be a different company, and this filing does not name it.
5,239 plans on file name Principal as their recordkeeper. Of those, the 5,230 with a computable fee have a median plan-paid cost of $170.05 per participant.
Participants log in at Principal ↗. 401(k) Monitor is not affiliated with Principal or with any other recordkeeper, and takes nothing for this link. It is here because that is where the account is.
| Recordkeeper | Principal |
|---|---|
| Recordkeeper EIN | 420127290 |
What does the First Financial Bancorp plan report on Form 5500?
The First Financial Bancorp plan reported $171.4M in assets and 2,641 participants for plan year 2024.
| Total plan assets | $171,448,343 |
|---|---|
| Participants | 2,641 |
| Plan-paid admin cost per participant | $46.43 |
How that cost compares
This plan pays $46.43 per participant. The median across plans at banks and lenders is $152.83, from the 2,143 of 2,264 whose Form 5500 yields a per-participant cost.
Read from the Form 5500 filing of First Financial Bancorp 401(k) Savings Plan, which has no page of its own here.
How does First Financial Bancorp's 401(k) match compare?
First Financial Bancorp pays no employer 401(k) match. Across the 269 companies in our data with a computable formula, the median maximum match is 4% of pay.
Employers worth reading next
Of the six employers below, two disclose no employer match either, three file at banks and lenders and one reports the same recordkeeper.
No match; the employer contributes on its own. Discloses no employer match either.
No employer match in the filing. Discloses no employer match either.
Employer match vests in full after 3 years. Also at banks and lenders.
No employer match in the filing. Also at banks and lenders.
Maximum match 7% of pay. Also at banks and lenders.
Match vests in steps, 100% after 6 years. Same recordkeeper, Principal.
Compare First Financial Bancorp with any company, side by side
What can you do next?
- Read the Form 11-K on SEC EDGAR ↗
Form 11-K filed June 25, 2026, SEC EDGAR. Every match fact on this page comes from it.
- Changed jobs? Find an old 401(k) ↗
The Department of Labor's Retirement Savings Lost & Found, a free government database.
- This year's IRS contribution limits ↗
The official deferral and catch-up limits every formula operates under.
Questions this filing answers
What is First Financial Bancorp's 401(k) match?
First Financial Bancorp discloses only part of its match terms in the 11-K for the plan year ended December 31, 2025; its filing discloses no employer matching contribution for this plan. First Financial Bancorp's Form 5500 for plan year 2024 reports $0.28 of employer money per active participant. This is the whole employer side of the plan: matching money, profit sharing, non-elective and safe-harbor contributions, and reallocated forfeitures. The Form 5500 does not separate them, so this is what the employer put in and not the match.
When does the First Financial Bancorp 401(k) match vest?
Immediate: employer match is 100% vested when contributed.
Does First Financial Bancorp's 401(k) plan have automatic enrollment?
Yes: default deferral 5% of pay; auto-escalation +1%/yr to 10%.
Who is the recordkeeper for First Financial Bancorp's 401(k)?
Principal is named as the recordkeeper on the Form 5500 filed for First Financial Bancorp 401(k) Savings Plan for plan year 2024. That is the company paid to keep the account records: what is in an account, what went into it, and usually the site a participant signs in to.
Source
The match formula, the vesting schedule and the enrollment rules on this page were read from one document: the Form 11-K annual report that First Financial Bancorp filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission for the plan year ended December 31, 2025. Each of those fields carries the filing sentence it was read from, expandable where the field appears. Nothing on this page was supplied by the employer to this site.
The plan assets, the participant counts, the plan-paid fees and the recordkeeper come from a different document, the plan’s DOL Form 5500 annual return, and the section that reports them links it. Comparisons with other employers are computed across the filings named in the section they appear in.
Read the filing on SEC EDGAR ↗
| Document | Form 11-K annual report |
|---|---|
| Filed with | US Securities and Exchange Commission (EDGAR) |
| Filed by | First Financial Bancorp |
| SEC CIK | 708955 |
| Accession number | 0000708955-26-000126 |
| Plan | First Financial Bancorp 401(k) Savings Plan |
| Period of report | December 31, 2025 |
| Filed | June 25, 2026 |
401(k) Monitor is not affiliated with First Financial Bancorp, with the Securities and Exchange Commission or with this plan’s recordkeeper, and publishes this page without their involvement. It republishes a public filing and says where it came from.
Cite this page
401(k) Monitor, “First Financial Bancorp 401(k) plan facts”, from SEC Form 11-K accession 0000708955-26-000126, plan year ended December 31, 2025.
