Products October 21, 2013

SunGard Unveils Planning Tool

WealthStation CompAct is SunGard’s financial planning tool that lets advisers produce results-based, holistic financial plans quickly, simply and interactively.
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Eight financial planning concepts—including retirement planning, accumulation planning, asset allocation, cash/debt management, financial priorities and financial statements—are addressed and illustrated with charts and summary tables. The financial planning tool simplifies complex information and helps advisers make financial plans more meaningful to investors.

The tool is used collaboratively with an adviser’s clients to develop a basic financial plan. In a statement, SunGard said the solution is suitable for advisers who have resisted providing this service because of the complexity of the software tools available.

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The tool is integrated with SunGard’s financial planning application WealthStation Financial Planning, so that firms can adapt to changing client needs as they become more complex, but is a single stand-alone application.

According to SunGard, WealthStation CompAct can help advisers redefine and strengthen client relationships through several capabilities:

  • Simplified prioritization of goals by focusing the client’s resources on the most important topics first;
  • Streamlined data input process through tools that automatically set assumptions, provide recommendations, and illustrate various scenarios for comparison;
  • Generation of a client-focused analysis including easy-to-understand illustrations;
  • Incorporating SunGard’s MyRetirement to help advisers determine a client’s withdrawal rate during retirement; and
  • Integration with WealthStation Financial Planning to provide efficiencies in creating a more in-depth plan at a later date if needed.

The increase in competition and drive to greater efficiency and productivity makes it more necessary for advisers to differentiate themselves with client-friendly financial plans and to help clients quickly understand how to achieve prioritized goals, said Jennifer Valdez, senior vice president and general manager of SunGard’s wealth and retirement administration business. “At the same time, financial advisers are looking to extend the financial planning experience to more clients, and do so efficiently, consistently and profitably,” Valdez said.

SunGard’s WealthStation CompAct addresses multiple planning concepts at a simple level of user interactivity, helping advisers prioritize multiple client goals and streamline the plan-creation process.”

More information about the tool is on SunGard’s site.

Products October 21, 2013

Guardian Kicks Off Financial Literacy Site

A personal financial planning website shows people how they can walk through their financial lives, starting with a career in their 20s all the way through retirement.
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The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America created a consumer-oriented, educational website to help investors start thinking about and planning for retirement. 

The site, www.myretirementwalk.com, offers tools, infographics and guidance for people at several life stages using an animated, interactive experience to provide financial planning and retirement insights. Major milestones—a person’s first job out of college, mid-career promotions, marriage, starting a family, buying a home and preparing for retirement—are guideposts along the way.

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Visitors can select an avatar based on age and gender and then guide that avatar on a simulated walk. The site offers advice about saving, managing debt and planning for the future for each stage.

My Retirement Walk is also an engagement tool for financial professionals looking to start more meaningful conversations with clients and prospects about retirement and financial planning. Only 13% of Americans report that they are very confident they will have enough money to live comfortably in retirement – according to the 2013 Retirement Confidence Survey by the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) – making it is essential for financial professionals to directly confront their clients’ educational and planning needs. My Retirement Walk can be an engaging and informative tool for advisers.

Guardian developed the website and tools in collaboration with behavioral finance expert Daniel Crosby of IncBlot Behavioral Finance. Because it can be difficult for people to break free of day-to-day responsibilities to focus on future financial needs, Crosby and Guardian leveraged the principles of behavioral finance to make the site entertaining and educational.

The goal was to help people think about their futures without feeling overwhelmed. Educated consumers are more likely to take action, especially when they can clearly envision themselves older and in retirement. Many tools, including infographics, articles and calculators, can be found through the resources tab on the site.

A blog feed on the site addresses a range of retirement-oriented topics. Crosby is the main contributor and, with other authors, will offer insights and observations on issues such as how to drive better retirement outcomes, how to develop attainable action plans for retirement saving and how to set financial goals for each of life’s stages.

In “How to Create a Retirement Action Plan,” Crosby suggests individuals move beyond the bucket list and think about items such as housing, health care and estate planning. He cautions against letting a 401(k) or other retirement plan go on auto-pilot, and suggests people work with an adviser to set and achieve financial goals. ‘’ More posts on personal finance issues will be added regularly, a Guardian spokesman said.

The website address is myretirementwalk.com.

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