After viewing my credit card statement (personal and business) I was greeted with the following retirement planning pitch from Bank of America. I’ve recently seen similar banners on the bank’s homepage (though not today).

It’s not easy getting consumers interested in looking at their retirement situation when they are in the middle of an Internet session. There’s always something more pressing or entertaining to be done than worry about some distant event. 

So it takes extra effort to entice clicks. BofA has a good approach. The “Stop Guessing About the Future” hook is a good way to grab attention. And the colorful slider-based tool is easy to use and, most importantly, takes only a few seconds to deliver some meaningful results.

1. Bank of America logoff screen (2:25 PM, June 16)

2. Landing page of promo (link)

The BofA tool uses a short bit of audio to get your attention and explain how to complete the short, five-step wizard. Users may turn off the audio using the button in the upper right. 

3. Step 1 of 5

4. Results page

• Calculates your “retirement number,” the amount you need to have to bring your cash income during retirement to 85% of today’s value (similar themes have been used by Wells Fargo (here) and ING (here))
• Shows range of possibilities based on a range of potential investment returns
• Has two handy boxes showing when you’ll run out of cash and how much you need to add to your monthly savings to avoid that (also expressed in ranges)
• Action plan in the lower right leads to some suggested courses of action, that the bank can help with, such as rolling over a 401(k)

Note: For more information see our Online Banking Report on Selling Behind the Password, published in April.