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The Council on Financial Competition just completed a survey of 1,250 US ”baby boomers” about their attitudes to saving, spending and investments.  With all that has gone on over the past two years we know one thing for sure — whatever financial institutions thought they knew about consumer attitudes and behaviors probably isn’t true now. 

So we asked. 

An early piece of uncomfortable but not surprising news.  42% of mass market baby boomers who in the last year went to the firm that managed the largest share of their savings and investments looking for guidance reduced their share of wallet with the firm.  Only 16% increased their share of wallet.  In contrast, high net worth customers (investable assets greater than $1 million) who updated or created a plan with their advisor were 47% more likely to increase their share of wallet and 43% more likely to increase their investments as a proportion of income.  Why the disparity?

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For those of you who have never blogged, I will let you in on a little secret. Writing your first blog post is not easy. The first post sets the tone. Should it be edgy?  Creative?  Funny?  Luckily, I stumbled across a blog where the author stated “Writing your first blog post is just like walking into a room full of people you’ve never met.” So, with that in mind, I will employ the advice of my mother and do the polite thing. I will start with an introduction.

FS Edge is a blog brought to you by The Business Banking Board (BBB), The Council on Financial Competition (CFC) and The Operations Council (OC.) For the uninitiated, BBB, CFC and OC are membership organizations for leading financial services executives. We provide resources to help these executives make confident decisions and gain global insights. If you want to read more about our organization and our “day jobs” you can check out our corporate website.

What makes us unique is our perspective, which is grounded in the constant and unprecedented contact we have with a global network of thousands of senior executives across the financial services industry.

We plan to use this blog for frequent and informal interaction, to share our personal observations about the industry, opine honestly, and engage in discussions. You can expect to find posts about emerging issues, what we are hearing from your peers and updates on our ongoing research. Sometimes you may agree with us, sometimes not. The objective is to engage in serious discussion about serious issue affecting the industry.  We will try to be edgy and thought provoking in our commentary.  By participating and regularly reviewing the blog you get an edge on the competition.  Edge.  Got it?  We want to hear from you.

Our posts can be sorted by category — Business Banking, Retail Banking or Operations (see it over there on the right?). Or, you can read them all by visiting “Home” at the top of the page.

We’re excited to begin the conversation and hope you’ll chime in with thoughts and comments along the way.  It is an exciting time to be in Financial Services.  Lots to do.  So let’s begin.