We were surprised recently to find that Vanguard had taken down its product information for the Vanguard Lifetime Income Program, the firm’s income annuity. A brief message refers visitors to a dedicated customer service telephone line, in place of an extensive product section with key features, investment options, FAQs and other information. In fact, we had commended Vanguard with a Gold Monitor in our 2007 Annuity Monitor Awards for its product details, information kit and actionable instant quote tool.

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Following recent observations about how firms have been less than transparent about their financial stability on their websites and through other means, it seems that some companies are taking a different, more clear approach in reassuring potential clients. Instead of sugar-coating the state of their corporation’s health, some firms are now reassuring clients that their money is safe because their accounts are FDIC-insured – not because the firm is somehow “different from all the rest” that went down, as many have recently claimed.

While clients may still feel anxious and uncertain about the future home of their finances, the knowledge that their money is secure and won’t completely disappear with a firm if it collapses provides at least some comfort during financially unstable times. Continue Reading »

Late last month, Corporate Insight released a report analyzing the financial service industry’s online response to the financial crisis. After reviewing public, private and advisor site homepages for over 90 top firms we came away with the impression that the financial service industry had not done enough to reassure worried investors and advisors during the market turmoil.

As a follow-up to the online market messaging report, we thought it would be a good idea to look at how firms responded to the crisis using a more traditional medium, postal mail. Thus, we began sifting through the account mailings we have received over the past month in search of market messaging that serves to calm investor concerns, reinforce a firm’s financial strength, etc. Unfortunately, the response is nearly non-existent so far. Continue Reading »

Today marks the seventh straight day that the major U.S. stock market indices have fallen in what has become a very turbulent season for the economy, financial markets and for the financial services industry. It’s amazing how far and how fast we’ve fallen.

It was just a year ago today that the Dow Jones Industrial Average hit its all-time record of 14,164.53. In a sad irony, this past Monday the 6th, the Dow closed below 10,000 for the first time since October of 2004 and the index closed below 9,000 today. All of this comes at the height of a heated presidential campaign and on the heels of a controversial $700 billion dollar government rescue plan to save the economy from the industry’s foibles.

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I just got back from this year’s NAVA Annual Meeting and wanted to get some thoughts down about the sessions. Overall, it was an interesting day and a half, if lightly attended. According to one vendor, there were something like 300 no-shows (about half of what was expected). I imagine recent market events have put some travel restrictions in place at many companies.

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On Friday, I met with the team that’s putting together the social media report to discuss initial findings. It’s going to be a great report, featuring reviews of the social media features of all of the firms we cover for our Monitor services, as well as some others outside our coverage group (like Quicken) that we feel are worth understanding. Our research reveals a few overarching themes that firms need to consider: Continue Reading »

On the lighter side of things, perhaps we need to add this “firm” to coverage for Bank Monitor:

This week, we couldn’t help but think of the famous “Dewey Defeats Truman” photgraph from the 1948 presidential election. For those of you that may not be familiar, the famous photo depicts President Harry Truman holding up a newspaper with the erroneous headline declaring Thomas Dewey’s victory, when Truman actually ended up winning the election over Dewey. The newspaper publisher badly jumped the gun there. It was actually Wachovia that reminded us this week of that moment.

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Could it be we’re finding a bottom to the financial mess? I’m not an economist, but a couple of interest events point to some optimism:

Non-Government Assisted M&A - Usually, one of the first signs in forming a bottom is when investors (people, traders, firms, whatever) swoop in and start buying out-of-favor assets. Think value investing. A couple of news items recently seem to point to that happening: Continue Reading »