Merrill Edge Launches Face Retirement

NEW YORK - (BUSINESS WIRE) - In an effort to motivate Americans to save for their retirement, Merrill Edge today introduced Face Retirement, a social tool that ages a picture of consumers, enabling them to see how they will look years down the line.

"In a Stanford University experiment, people who saw age-enhanced images of themselves were more likely to save more for retirement, compared to those who weren't exposed to their future selves," said Alok Prasad, head of Merrill Edge. "Face Retirement is designed to minimize that gap by giving consumers a preview of their future self, encouraging them to take control of long-term financial planning."

According to the fall 2012 Merrill Edge Report, half (52 percent) of mass affluent have saved less than $250,000 for retirement. As a result, more than half of respondents plan to retire later than they had one year ago (56 percent), a year-over-year increase of 19 percent from November 2011.