“People who see an
age-progressed rendering of themselves are more likely to allocate resources to
the future.”
As reported in a recent Financial Planning
article, executives of Bank of America’s Merrill Edge program have altered
the face of retirement planning, literally. A new online tool, Face Retirement, ages a
consumer’s photo so investors can see what they’ll look like several years down
the road.
The new tool is supposed to
motivate Americans to save more for their retirement and to engage in
conversations about their financial future. The tool was prompted, in part, by
a Stanford
University experiment finding that those who exposed “themselves” to their
“older selves” were more likely to begin thinking about retirement and planning
for it than those who were not exposed to the images.
The tool performs other functions as well. It can show a
potential investor what prices will look like with inflation in the future. And
most importantly, the tool can predict the amount of savings a person will need
at the age of retirement.
References: Financial Planning (December 6, 2012) “New Tool Helps Investors Face Retirement,
Literally”
Stanford University
(2011) “Increasing Saving Behavior Through
Age-Progressed Renderings of the Future Self”
Merrill Edge (2012)
“Face Retirement”