A new mobile app that puts additional information at users' fingertips could offer a way to boost retirement savings, especially among millennials.
That's the intent behind the "Augmented Reality by Transamerica" app, launched by Transamerica Retirement Solutions. The app, available via Apple iTunes or Google Play, allows users to view short retirement readiness awareness videos.
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And if Transamerica is their plan provider, users will be led to Transamerica's website where they can act on what they've seen while they're still focusing on the idea of retirement savings.
Once they're at the site they can "enroll in their company's retirement plan, increase their contribution percentages, or assess their financial outlook for retirement," according to Stig Nybo, president of U.S. retirement strategy for Transamerica Retirement Solutions.
"Studies show more people are using their mobile devices to manage their daily lives, including their retirement accounts," Nybo said in a statement. "Millennials are especially apt to using their smartphone as their primary means of retrieving information."
Although the immediacy in taking action offered by the app is undoubtedly helpful in a daily environment fraught with distractions, it remains to be seen whether the new app will win millennials as hoped.
A recent study by Bank of New York Mellon and the University of Oxford's Said Business School found that less than 1 percent of millennials wanted financial services companies to reach out to them via social media.
Instead, millennials regard such efforts as "creepy" and might view the new app with skepticism — particularly since the BNY Mellon study also found that 59 percent of millennials say they haven't seen products targeted toward people like them, and overall, the age group simply doesn't see the advantage of saving money for retirement.
On the other hand, a Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies survey earlier this year found that millennials' median savings amounted to $9,000 in 2007 and had zoomed up to $32,000 by this year.
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