Financial Health Club for the Emerging Affluent

Citigroup has launched myFi, hoping to create a "financial wellness" service for the emerging affluent. Initially, Smith Barney clients with less than $250,000 will be encouraged to move their accounts to the new myFi call center, where they will be served by salaried advisers rather than commissioned salespeople.

Ultimately, Ron Lieber writes in the NY Times, Citigroup's wealth management unit envisions MyFi as something of a financial health club:

The idea is to use the Web, along with call center teams that will be led by certified financial planners, to help people make sense of and then improve their entire financial lives, not just their investments. The catch? You may have to be willing to pay a monthly subscription fee.

MyFi uses a “wellness” theme in its pitch. Plenty of people pay $50 or $100 a month for gym memberships or personal trainers. Shouldn’t it be worth that much to keep your finances in shape, too?

At NetBanker, Jim Bruene notes that a long-time Wall Street Journal columnist will play a role in the new venture:

myFi's director of financial advice is Jonathon Clements, a long-time Wall Street Journal personal finance writer who recently left the paper. If he can instill his pragmatic personal finance outlook to Citi's offering, it would help differentiate it from similar offerings.

Ron Lieber writes that myFi is "is still working out the extent to which it can act as a fiduciary, the standard for someone who always acts solely in the client’s best interest.

"MyFi intends to be a fiduciary as far as client investments are concerned. What isn’t yet clear, however, is how far it has to go to be a fiduciary when, for example, advising someone who needs a new mortgage."

• • •

"Darling, guess what. I'm a little bit…fiduciary!"