With trillions of dollars littering the collective retirement accounts of Baby Boomers, the financial services industry as a whole is gearing services toward obtaining that money as the Boomers begin to retire, The Wall Street Journal reports. With Boomers born between the years 1946 and 1964, the first big wave of 65-year-old retirees should take place in 2011.
Fidelity Investments, for instance, introduced the Fidelity Retirement Income Advantage service, a program designed to aid Boomers in their transfer from 401(k) retirement plan savings to retirement living itself. Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. followed suit, rolling out a Savings Product Division steered toward Baby Boomers set to retire within the next five years. Even brokerage houses are joining in. Merrill Lynchs Retirement Paycheck Service is designed to help retirees with their cash flow and investment management.
Companies like Vanguard and TD Waterhouse are doing similar things. But some skeptics think that shifting money into complicated new services is not the answer.
"I see a lot of people in retirement running off to these retirement advisers, who put them in complicated stock and bond products when probably all they needed is three mutual funds," John Markese of the American Association of Individual Investors told the Journal.
