Financial services companies need to expand the focus of Boomer-oriented retirement planning services beyond the “superrich,” according to Investment News. Affluent investors –with $2.5 million in assets or more–are the industry’s most profitable customers, but the big opportunity is investors with slightly more modest assets, ranging from $500,000 to $2.5 million. They’ll have $20 trillion in retirement assets by 2020.

“In the next year, we expect a number of firms, both big and small, to fill the gap with powerful technology that simplifies the retirement-planning process without sacrificing sophistication,” write Mark Elzweig and Nancy Miller. A study by Financial Research Corp. indicates that up to 40 percent of Boomers age 40-60 might be “in play.”  But the big challenge will be serving this niche profitably, as clients increasingly want expensive personalized service and face-time. Financial services giants prefer cheaper automated services.

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