In this week’s Advisor Monitor Update (Corporate Insight subscription required), we reviewed Lord Abbett’s new advisor website. As we mentioned, the site revamp upgrades the site’s overall appearance, offers far more content and increases its usability with more clearly labeled tabs.  It’s a good overall change, and the advisor homepage provides some good examples of best practices. In fact, there are five things we like about the new homepage:

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In brief: Social media tools such as wikis, microblogs, etc. can be used internally at financial services firms to spur innovation.

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Considering the popular Apple iPhone application commercials, one might wonder if there is an app for absolutely everything. Dog whistle? Check. Subway maps? Check. Is there an app for forecasting a child’s college education expenses? Check; thanks to AXA Equitable, there is.

The firm recently added an image to the public homepage that promotes their free College Savings iPhone application. In fact, the firm currently offers multiple financially-based applications, such as the Life Expectancy and Retirement Shortfall calculators. Continue Reading »

A recent Schwab survey (discussed in this Financial Planning article) has two interesting data points:

• Less than half of surveyed brokers (46%) feel their employer’s brand helped them attract clients
• More than 80% feel their clients are loyal to them (that is, the advisor) and not the firm

Granted, this was a small survey (200 respondents), but it does highlight one of the central challenges that marketers at wirehouses have: how to achieve the right balance between supporting the advisor and creating loyalty to the firm directly with the investor.

Indeed, during many of our mystery shops over the years, brokers often lead with the value that he or she brings to the relationship over that of the firm. We’ve even had a few brokers tell us, “When it comes down to it, all the firms provide the same thing.” (!)

So the questions firms need to focus on are: Are we providing our advisors with all the tools and resources they need to build and grow their businesses? How can we stand out in the advisors’ minds as the one place to be to become the most successful? What can we do for their clients to make us the firm of choice?

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As readers of our Credit Card Monitor Update know, Barclay’s recently announced their Gconomy Visa Card, which rewards customers for environmentally friendly actions like recycling. Bank of America also offers an eco-conscious card – the Brighter Planet EarthSmart Points Visa – which works to build renewable energy projects across the US.

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A recent article on Forbes.com discusses a number of online bank account fraud anecdotes, and assesses the various ways the victims’ banks could have avoided the near catastrophic incidents simply by upgrading their online security systems. The article got us thinking about the best types of online account security offered by the Bank Monitor firms we track. It seems that although many firms offer basic online account verification features, like log-in security questions, images and codes, only a few take security to the next level when it comes to actual account navigation and individual online transactions. Continue Reading »

Like a trick-or-treater’s bag, heavy with an assortment of candy at the end of Halloween, this October offered a bit of everything…

Retirement gets social

After first launching a beta version in February 2008, TIAA-CREF made its retirement-focused online community, MyRetirement.org, publically available this month. MyRetirement is one of the broader online communities we have seen to date. Instead of focusing entirely on products, or featuring commentary exclusively from firm employees, TIAA-CREF provides customers with an open platform on which they can discuss retirement, as well as other topics of interest. TIAA-CREF’s decision to launch a beta version of the community was also significant; doing so allowed the firm to seed its discussion boards with user-generated content, meaning that when MyRetirement was officially opened, new users were able to join active conversations. Continue Reading »

As we mentioned in this week’s Mutual Fund Monitor – Advisor update, Franklin Templeton’s Mark Mobius has entered the social media waters by launching a blog and Twitter profile. Over the past several months, I have had many conversations with mutual fund executives about how best to tackle social media. Indeed, at the recent MFEA Star Awards conference, social media was one of the most-discussed topics. In light of this, it is refreshing to see Franklin Templeton launch this blog and there are some useful takeaways for fund executives to learn from:

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We recently came across an InvestmentNews article highlighting new efforts by Merrill Lynch in the area of retirement income planning. Given the current state of the economy (and of investors’ retirement accounts), good planning is now more critical than ever to ensure that clients can retire comfortably - at least, relatively comfortably.

According to the article, the firm is starting a new retirement income training program for financial advisors called Merrill Lynch Retirement Income Framework, which is based on reviewing best practices of advisors across the country. While details of the training program are not provided, the article quotes Aimee DeCamillo, the firm’s head of personal retirement solutions, as saying that the program takes into consideration the risk of clients outliving their assets, inflation, health care costs and planning risks.

Merrill Lynch is also leveraging its connection with Bank of America, according to the article, by setting up a new program whereby clients with at least $250,000 in their retirement accounts can periodically transfer money to a Bank of America deposit account to provide convenient access to retirement income at local branches and ATMs. Clients can give their financial advisors permission to monitor the spending in their accounts to help assure that they remain on track.

Merrill Lynch has been one of the more outspoken firms with regard to retirement income planning for some time now. In fact, we published a research report on Retirement Income Planning almost two years ago, and even then, we highlighted Merrill Lynch as a leader. Despite the focus on retirement income, however, the firm has lacked the robust client-facing tools that we have seen from Fidelity. It will be interesting to see if Merrill Lynch will introduce new online features in conjunction with the new financial advisor push and Bank of America partnership.

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While the economy appears to be recovering from a debilitating recession, millions of Americans are still struggling to make mortgage payments and stay in their homes. As recently as a few weeks ago, the Wall Street Journal warned of “new mortgage-default waves” as more people lose their jobs, option ARMs reset, and home values continue to stagnate, leaving homeowners with mortgage balances higher than the value of their property.

Federal resources exist to help Americans in those circumstances, notably the Making Home Affordable refinancing and modification programs. In our recently released Consumer Financial Education Today report, we highlighted the way Chase effectively positions those government resources online alongside their own counseling and assistance initiatives, in this case via their Homeownership Center. In contrast, Bank of America’s primary Web resource for homeowners was, until recently, the elegant but not necessarily timely Home Loan Guide. The site walks users through the process of buying a home, refinancing or borrowing from home equity, but does not specifically appeal to distressed homeowners or mention government assistance. Fortunately, the firm now offers a website to address these troubled homeowners - the Home Loan Assistance center.

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