Data & Research January 23, 2013

Parents Play Vital Role in Financial Education

A majority of retirement plan participants who responded to a recent survey said they learned about finances from their parents.
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According to the American United Life Insurance Company (AUL), a OneAmerica company, 56% of respondents said their parents taught them about finances. Thirty-eight percent indicated they learned about finances from books.  

Twenty percent of respondents said a teacher in school taught them about finances, 12% learned from their spouse, and 8% learned from another family member.  

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According to the survey, younger adults, between the ages of 20 and 30, were much more likely (71%) to have learned about finance from parents than other age groups.  

“These findings tell us that there’s opportunity for our industry to fill in knowledge gaps,” said Marsha Whitehead, vice president of marketing communications for the retirement services division. “We need to pool our resources and help parents raise financially literate children. Better educating participants about their own retirement plans could have a ripple effect on future generations of retirement plan participants.”

Products January 23, 2013

N.Y. Firm Rolls Out Precious Metals Platform

Gold Bullion International (GBI) launched a physical precious metals platform for registered investment advisers (RIAs).
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GBI Advisors (GBIA), specifically designed for independent advisers, is the first online platform that enables advisers to buy, sell and store physical precious metals on behalf of their clients. Bars and coins of gold, silver, platinum and palladium can be stored in six global, insured vaults operated by Brinks, Via-Mat, and Malca Amit.

Steven Feldman, chief executive of GBI, said there has been tremendous demand for physical precious metals from the firm’s customer base, which sees the case for the price appreciation of precious metals as well as the need to diversify portfolios away from the traditional stock and bond focus.

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“The independent adviser has never had a platform to facilitate owning physical precious metals,” Feldman said. 

GBI is the first institutional quality company to streamline the antiquated system of purchasing, vaulting and owning physical precious metals. Through its proprietary technology, orders are placed for competitive bid by GBI’s network of dealers and refiners, ensuring that investors receive competitive pricing. The precious metals are also allocated to the client’s name, unlike traditional bank and dealer processes, and unlike the precious metals exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

The long-term case for physical ownership by investors is gaining momentum, particularly for gold, according to Feldman. “We are committed to making the process of buying physical gold and other precious metals easier and more broadly available to investors,” Feldman said.

GBI plans to integrate the GBIA platform into several RIA reporting systems in February. These integrations will give RIAs a way to aggregate a client’s precious metals holdings into monthly statements and include the allocation in the overall investment portfolio.

The platform is free to advisers.

Gold Bullion International is a provider of physical precious metals to the wealth management industry.

More information is here.

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