As 2010 begins, we take a look back at the changes made across the financial services industry in the last month of 2009.

Of particular note, some credit card firms started to get into the holiday spirit with charity-focused giving initiatives and new tools were introduced across several industries.

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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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BlackRock added a 529 plan section to the Products tab. The new CollegeAdvantage 529 Plan section is divided into three education tabs, similar in design to the firm’s Retirement Plan Solutions tab. The three tabs – Overview, Investment Options and Getting Started – consist of downloadable resources, forms and a new Morningstar College Savings tool. The new section emphasizes the need for parents to establish a 529 Plan and markets a number of different 529 Plan strategies offered by the firm.

This is a good addition by Blackrock and reduces the number of firms that we track in Mutual Fund Monitor Advisor without 529 plans to three: Evergreen, Federated, and iShares.

If you are interested in learning more on 529 Plan Kits, click here to read an abstract of a May 2008 Mutual Fund -Advisor Report.

While we don’t monitor third-party account aggregators like Mint, Wesabe and Cake Financial nearly as closely as we do our financial institution coverage groups, we do like to keep an eye on developments among those popular personal finance services. We receive a number of periodic emails from aggregation services where we’ve established accounts - financial summaries, account alerts, new discussions, etc. We had one in our inbox recently from Mint saying how much they’ve missed our visits and encouraging us to check in. While this was definitely not a unique or surprising communication, we found this interesting in light of a few trends among aggregators and financial services in general. Continue Reading »

Over the past several months, adjustments to benefit riders for variable annuity contracts have (almost exclusively) followed a reduction trend. As a result of capitalization pressure on many financial institutions, some variable annuity benefit riders and guarantees were eliminated altogether.

There are, however, some notable exceptions. Two firms covered by Annuity Monitor – Hartford Life and Prudential – have recently enhanced some of their benefit riders. Continue Reading »

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. Continue Reading »

If you’re at all familiar with online calculators/planners, it’s easy see that Banco Itaú’s new I Can Bank It calculator/planner, pictured above, is a departure from the norm. The Brazilian bank’s calculator, which is geared towards teens and twenty-somethings, is hands-down better - better looking, more fun, easier to use, more persuasive - than a lot of the online tools we’ve seen developed for this demographic. Continue Reading »

Online financial planning centers specialized for women are a fantastic idea – when they are integrated eloquently with useful resources. Though some firms try with only mediocre success, Citibank is one that seems to get it right with its special financial advice section for women. Citibank’s general planning center promotes a membership program called Women & Co., which offers women educational tools and resources to help them define and work towards their financial goals. Continue Reading »

Last week, we blogged about Boulevard R, a site that offers CFP-prepared financial plans for $49. At the time, we expressed some skepticism that the firm could supply such a service for so little money. With that in mind, we did a little more digging to try to figure out exactly how the service works. We spoke with Boulevard R’s CEO over the phone, and he was more than happy to walk us through the process.  Continue Reading »

Isn’t the Internet wonderful? We can do so many things, unthinkable a decade or so ago, without even leaving our homes - or even talking to anyone. This now includes getting a holistic financial plan without ever having to meet with or speak to an advisor. This is all thanks to a website called Boulevard R that we recently discovered and which appears to offer a pretty intriguing service. Web-based tools like this often catch our eye and we thought it was worth sharing our initial impressions of Boulevard R with you.

To be sure, online tools that deliver a high-level “plan of action” based on the user’s responses to a questionnaire are not new. Online brokerage firms like Fidelity have offered these tools for years and some are pretty impressive. Boulevard R, however, isn’t a brokerage firm. This is key to their value proposition. Their advice claims to be more objective since they aren’t trying to get you to buy their mutual funds or otherwise invest with them. This independence is heavily touted on the firm’s website and we think that it’s an important distinction. Additionally, they say every PDF financial plan - which the company calls its “Roadmap” - is prepared by a Certified Financial Planner, and not a calculator that simply spits out results. Considering the price tag, that’s pretty hard to believe.

So what is the cost for this service? A mere $49. Forgo one dinner out at a restaurant and you can get yourself a full financial plan. Sounds generous, doesn’t it? Well, the company actually lets users try out its online platform for free without even having to sign up. Users answer a series of questions relating to their current financial situation, future financial goals, retirement goals, savings, income and investments. A Flash-based results page then opens, which illustrates the user’s anticipated surplus or shortfall and allows the user to tinker with inputs to see the effect on the results. Users can also print a PDF summary for free. In order to request the full PDF Roadmap (which the site says is 30+ pages), they must sign up and pay. We’re not sure if this is how the full plan works yet but if it is similar, we don’t see how they can say a CFP put this together (more on this next week).

Boulevard R’s target audience is those investors with under $500,000 in investable assets. These are the folks that are now often ignored by the full-service brokerage firms that typically provide comprehensive financial planning services. As it is, high net worth individuals and older, more conservative investors usually prefer face-to-face contact with a financial advisor or planner to an online planning tool. Clearly, Boulevard R is after the Internet-savvy Gen-X market, as well as those that just can’t afford a traditional fee-based financial plan but are willing to spend a small amount of money to better understand their financial future. In any event, it will certainly be interesting to see whether Boulevard R will prove successful in bringing low-fee online planning to the masses and whether this type of independent, on-demand service is the next big thing.