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BofA Rolls Out Digital Financial Planning Tool for Clients

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In an effort to help its customers engage in better financial planning, Bank of America (BAC - Free Report) launches its digital financial planning tool — Life Plan. Customers will be able to access the Life Plan program through the bank’s mobile app and website.

With the help of this new digital tool, clients will be in a position to select and prioritize their most important goals within areas like finance, family, health, home, work and leisure. Also, customers will be able to create and continuously adjust their goals as and when their priorities change.

The tool is expected to help clients in tracking the progress of their goals. Clients will be provided personalized guidance and recommendations on incremental steps toward achieving the goals.

Notably, Life Plan, which is available both in English and Spanish, integrates with the company’s award-winning solutions like Erica, which is its artificial intelligence (“AI”)-driven virtual financial assistant, and Preferred Rewards, which is BofA’s loyalty program.

BofA’s head of Digital, Financial Center Strategy and Advanced Client Solutions, David Tyrie, stated, “We designed Life Plan to give clients the power to define, prioritize and make progress toward their financial goals. Life Plan delivers a personalized experience for every client, providing information that is timely and relevant, aligned to their unique financial goals, and offering a choice of the next best step.”

Tyrie added, “This is not a separate experience. This is essentially taking every piece of content that is in the Bank of America experience — all the products all the services — and just personalizing it, so it's relevant to you.”

Notably, Life Plan was in the pilot stage for almost eight months, with nearly 80,000 clients. During that period, the top five goals set by customers were “budget and start saving (32%), save for retirement (31%), buy a home (30%), save for a large purchase (30%), and improve my credit (28%).”

Our Take

BofA has been continuously trying to enhance digital offerings in order to meet the changing consumer demand, especially amid the pandemic. In addition to this initiative, the success of Zelle and Erica is expected to enable the company in achieving its objective.

Moreover, the bank continues to align its banking center network according to customer needs. It is opening fully automated branches that will feature ATMs and video conferencing facilities, allowing customers to communicate with off-site bankers. Further, it plans to add 2,200 more ATMs to its network.

Thus, the opening of branches, steady improvement in digital offerings and efforts to manage expenses are expected to aid BofA’s profitability in the near term.

Over the past six months, shares of the company have gained 11.2% compared with the industry’s rally of 6.2%.






Currently, BofA carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

A few better-ranked stocks from the finance space are mentioned below.

Moodys Corporation (MCO - Free Report) has witnessed an upward earnings estimate revision of 2.4% for the current year over the past 60 days. Its shares have gained 3.4% over the past three months. The company carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) at present. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Interactive Brokers Group, Inc.’s (IBKR - Free Report) earnings estimate has been revised 2.3% upward for the current year over the past 60 days. Over the past three months, the Zacks Rank #2 stock has gained 5.9%.

LPL Financial Holdings Inc.’s (LPLA - Free Report) earnings estimate for the current year has been unchanged over the past 60 days. Its shares have witnessed a rise of 5.4% over the past three months. The company currently carries a Zacks Rank #2.

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