Deals & People March 13, 2012

FiPath Hires Managing Director

Michael Turgeon was appointed managing director of Advisor Services for FiPath.
Reported by

Turgeon will be responsible for the establishment of enterprise sales and marketing initiatives for FiPath for Advisors, an online marketing solution for financial advisers.

Turgeon previously served in senior leadership roles with American Century Investments, a privately controlled and independent investment management firm, where he helped expand its mutual fund and retirement plan business within the brokerage firm arena. Before this, he was senior vice president and national sales manager, Strategic Markets, for Phoenix Investment Partners Ltd. (PXP), a provider of investment advisory services. Early in his career, he was a financial adviser with Morgan Stanley (then Dean Witter), and began his career with Merrill Lynch.

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Turgeon is a graduate of Keene State College in New Hampshire and has attended executive programs at Harvard and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He also has served on numerous committees with financial services associations, including the Investment Company Institute (ICI) and the Financial Planning Association (FPA).

Data & Research March 13, 2012

Workers Skittish about Use of Technology for Finances

Workers are slow to embrace new technologies to help them manage their finances.
Reported by

According to the 22nd annual Retirement Confidence Survey (RCS) by the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI), approximately half of workers report using a desktop or laptop with a direct Internet connection (53%) or with a wireless connection (46%) to help manage their finances. Much smaller percentages say they use smartphones (20%), a smartphone app (12%) or a tablet computer (11%) for this task. 

Even among those who use these technologies, only a minority feel very comfortable performing various tasks related to financial management online. Roughly four in 10 report feeling very comfortable shifting money from one account or investment to another online (41%) and using calculators online to assist with financial decisions (37%), but only 19% are very comfortable purchasing financial products online and just 10% say they are very comfortable obtaining advice from financial professionals online. 

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The survey was conducted in January 2012 through 20-minute telephone interviews with 1,262 individuals (1,003 workers and 259 retirees) age 25 and older in the U.S.

More information is available at http://www.ebri.org.

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