By Thomas Coyle

However suited to the demands of internal synergies, Merrill retirement income seems a bit “call center” compared with retirement-income plays like that of clearing firm Pershing, whose Longevity Income Solutions asset-allocation models  blend separately managed accounts, mutual funds and ETFs with an element of downside protection in the form of an annuity rider from insurance provider Phoenix. LifeYield, a technology maker with financial backing from SunTrust Banks, helps advisors manage their clients retirement assets across household portfolios of taxable and tax-qualified accounts.

Still, visions of call centers aren’t what Merrill conjures with the marketing materials it uses to support its Help2retire campaign. Instead it’s all fit and trim folk – most looking well under 65 – doing vigorous, exotic or luxurious things and taking every opportunity to say it’s best to stay invested, especially in stocks.

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Retail brokerages, insurance firms, pension-plan administrators, asset managers and technology vendors are struggling to find profitable ways to help private clients manage their retirement incomes. Merrill Lynch is no exception.

But My Retirement Income, the brokerage firm’s latest retirement-income gambit, is underwhelming. The program does little more than push increments of money from Merrill cash-management accounts to Bank of America deposit accounts “for simplified retirement-income distribution and management,” according to a Merrill press release that goes on to extol Bank of America’s cash-distribution network of 6,000 branches, 18,000 ATMs and limitless reach of the interwebs.

Bank of America has had Merrill in the bag since early this year.

“We recognize, and are uniquely positioned to address, the diverse retirement challenges that our clients face today,” says Bank of America wealth-management chief Sallie Krawcheck in a canned statement. “My Retirement Income is the latest demonstration of how the combination of Bank of America and Merrill Lynch offers our clients greater resources and solutions to help them pursue their retirement goals.”

Along with My Retirement Income, Merrill has rolled out a Retirement Income Framework to help its brokers devise retirement-income plans for an investment program that calls for putting client assets in three truncated life-cycle portfolios for near-term consumption, long-term investing and, with “excess savings” in play, for passing on to heirs.

However suited to the demands of internal synergies, Merrill retirement income seems a bit “call center” compared with retirement-income plays like that of clearing firm Pershing, whose Longevity Income Solutions asset-allocation models blend separately managed accounts, mutual funds and ETFs with an element of downside protection in the form of an annuity rider from insurance provider Phoenix. LifeYield, a technology maker with financial backing from SunTrust Banks, helps advisors manage their clients retirement assets across household portfolios of taxable and tax-qualified accounts.

Still, visions of call centers aren’t what Merrill conjures with the marketing materials it uses to support its Help2retire campaign. Instead it’s all fit and trim folks – most looking well under 65 – doing vigorous, exotic or luxurious things and taking every opportunity to say it’s best to stay invested, especially in stocks.

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