Over the last 60 days, Wachovia's retirement call center has seen an almost 30 percent increase in call volume on a year-over-year basis. Participants have been calling to rebalance portfolios to more conservative fund options, and in some cases to seek a distribution, a loan or change in savings rate.
"These are extraordinary times for the individual investor, and we want to be more available so we can help them through their thought process as they take steps to adjust to market volatility," said Joe Ready, head of Wachovia Retirement Services. "We feel it's important to respond to the increased volume of calls by expanding the timeframe for participants to make inquiries and changes to their accounts outside of the traditional Monday through Friday work week."
Wachovia Retirement Services administers over 6,700 retirement plans, manages $100.9 billion assets under administration and serves 2.2 million pensioners.
In early September, Wachovia Retirement Services began offering a free retirement consultation to participants, which is accessed by calling an 800 number. The consultation is offered by Wachovia's retirement plan specialists who help participants to determine if they are enrolled in the plan and on track to replace 80 percent of their pre-retirement income at the time of retirement based on an assessment of their current contributions. Wachovia Retirement Services advocates that employees try to contribute at least 6 percent of their pre-tax income and invest appropriately for their time horizon to retirement to maximize the potential to be "on track" for retirement.
During the month of September, of those participants who were offered the consultation, 32 percent agreed to speak with a retirement consultant. Of those who agreed to a consultation, 11 percent were on track for retirement, which is the same figure as those who accepted the retirement consultation during the pilot offering.
"We continue to believe in the value of a retirement consultation," Ready said. "One-to-one dialogue is the best way for a person in pre-retirement, working years to get a realistic picture for what their progress is toward building a retirement plan that is on track."
At Wachovia, any customer or prospective customer who visits a financial center or calls can obtain a free retirement consultation.
About Wachovia Retirement Services
Wachovia Retirement Services is part of the Retirement and Investment Products Group, a division of Wachovia's Capital Management Group. Wachovia Retirement Services provides fully bundled defined contribution, defined benefit and nonqualified retirement plans to both small and large companies, unions and municipalities. More complete information about Wachovia Retirement Services is accessible online at wachovia.com/401k.
About Wachovia
Wachovia Corporation (NYSE:WB) is one of the nation's largest diversified financial services companies, with assets of $764.4 billion and market capitalization of $7.6 billion at September 30, 2008. Wachovia provides a broad range of retail banking and brokerage, asset and wealth management, and corporate and investment banking products and services to customers through 3,300 retail financial centers in 21 states from Connecticut to Florida and west to Texas and California, and nationwide retail brokerage, mortgage lending and auto finance businesses. Globally, clients are served in selected corporate and institutional sectors and through more than 40 international offices. Our retail brokerage operations under the Wachovia Securities brand name manage more than $1.0 trillion in client assets through 14,600 financial advisors in 1,500 offices nationwide. Online banking is available at wachovia.com; online brokerage products and services at wachoviasec.com; and investment products and services at evergreeninvestments.com.
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