Prudential Financial Inc (PRU), Bank of America Corp (BAC), Wells Fargo & Co (WFC): Will Millennials Ever Start Saving for Retirement?

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The big business of retirement plans
Clearly, Fidelity, Prudential Financial Inc (NYSE:PRU), and other companies have a vested interest in retirement-savings activity. For years, financial companies have fought to gain market share in the private retirement plan market, and banking giants Bank of America Corp (NYSE:BAC)Wells Fargo & Co (NYSE:WFC) and JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) have boosted their staffing to try to target retirement plan management opportunities.

We’ve also seen similar activity in the public pension arena. Just earlier this month, Sen. Orrin Hatch pushed for public-pension reform that would open the door to Prudential Financial Inc (NYSE:PRU), Metlife Inc (NYSE:MET), and other insurance companies to offer annuities to pension-plan participants. Some have criticized the proposal as being a boondoggle for insurance companies, but it also highlights the tension between insurers and the asset-management specialists that currently control a large chunk of pension assets.

Why Millennials need to bite the bullet and save
Millennials who don’t want to support big banks and insurance companies in the wake of financial crisis-era bailouts might not like how financial companies use 401(k) plans as a revenue source. Yet given the benefits of 401(k)s as part of an overall retirement strategy, avoiding them on principle simply costs too much down the road.

Fidelity and its peers face an uphill battle in educating Millennials about the need to save for retirement. With signs that Millennials are at least addressing their debt situation well, however, giving up on the generation’s retirement prospects is at this point premature.

The article Will Millennials Ever Start Saving for Retirement? originally appeared on Fool.com and is written by Dan Caplinger.

Fool contributor Dan Caplinger owns warrants on Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, and Bank of America. You can follow him on Twitter @DanCaplinger. The Motley Fool recommends and owns shares of Bank of America and Wells Fargo. It owns shares of JPMorgan Chase.

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