The group does not seem eager to receive online statements instead of mailed paper statements. While 66% acknowledged they have the option to receive online statements, 57% of those who can, have chosen not to. Asked why, 75% said they like paper statements and 17% said they don't trust online statements (another 4% said electronic statements are too much work). Furthermore, among those who don't currently have the option to receive online statements, only 19% would choose to receive their statements that way if they could, for the same reasons (preferring paper and not trusting an online version).

And while boomers like the idea of aggregating brokerage accounts so that they could receive one statement per month, they don't want to give up passwords to do so. Although 18% said they would consider changing brokers in order to aggregate assets under one roof, more than half (52%) said they are not likely to provide multiple passwords to have their financial information aggregated. "There is a level of trust with investors that must be developed when it comes to giving away sensitive information like account passwords," wrote the report's authors, Adam Honore and James Kang. "Only 3% of investors would definitely provide passwords."

When it comes to mutual fund prospectuses, this survey confirmed the notion that they're rarely read. More than a quarter (26%) of the baby boomers admitted that they never read prospectuses, and 38% said they read a few. Only 13% read all of them. "The general stigma behind a mutual fund prospectus is that it is daunting to tackle because it is full of legal language and formatted in a disseminated manner," wrote Honore and Kang, noting that the SEC is in the process of approving the short-form or summary prospectus. The survey asked the baby boomers if they would read prospectuses that were two pages or less; 51% said they'd be more likely to read this shorter version.

Aite estimates that if firms only sent out the summary prospectuses and made the long version available on demand this year, prospectus printing and mailing costs would drop from $100 million to $35 million. Aite also forecasts a 16.5% annual growth rate in prospectuses, which would make the savings greater in 2009. The report authors also figure that using the short-form prospectus across the board would save nearly 39,000 trees and 128 acres of forest annually.

The survey provides limited support to the idea that prospectuses will eventually be paper-free. Asked if they would opt out of receiving prospectuses in the mail if they could view them online, 28% of the boomers said yes, 29% said no and 43% said maybe.

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