Published by David Rosenberg on 03 Feb 2009 at 11:42 am
Charles Schwab Throws Its Hat Into the Retirement Planning Service Ring
A couple of weeks ago, Charles Schwab announced the launch of its Real Life Retirement Services with a new interactive online promo. While retirement planning is not a new service from the firm, this is the first time that Schwab introduced a real branded retirement planning ”product” or suite of services.
In addition to the new online community, tools and educational content, Real Life Retirement Services include a complimentary retirement consultation with a Schwab representative and advice on selecting investments to generate retirement income. In a press release, a Schwab Vice President commented, “We chose to build a service that addresses real life challenges people are facing today, which typically don’t involve a life sailing around the world.”
We’re happy to see them move in this direction considering, in a Broker Monitor Report a little more than a year ago on the topic of Retirement Income Planning, we noted that while most brokerage firms offer retirement income planning as part of their regular advisory services, few have standardized branded “products”. In that report we used Merrill Lynch’s Retirement Income Service and Fidelity’s Retirement Income Advantage as models. One of our top recommendations, in fact, was for firms to consider launching some sort of similarly branded “product” for retirement income planning.
Schwab certainly picked an ideal time to introduce Real Life Retirement Services. Given the state of the economy and uncertainty for many potential retirees, planning is now more important than ever.
