Health Savings Account Blog

Customer demand topped the list of reasons institutions began offering Health Savings Accounts (80 percent). Second on the list was the ability Health Savings Accounts give them to generate new accounts (58 percent), with increasing cross-sell opportunities (51 percent) and growing revenue (51 percent) also noted as significant reasons.

Of the nearly 1,200 financial institutions surveyed, approximately 24 percent said they had no plans to offer Health Savings Accounts or weren't sure of their plans to do so. These institutions cited customer demand, lack of understanding of Health Savings Accounts and lack of management interest in offering Health Savings Accounts as reasons.

While Health Savings Accounts are growing in popularity with financial institutions, customers are still in the early stages of adoption, which may explain why customer demand is cited as both the number one reason institutions began or have not yet begun offering Health Savings Accounts. The majority of institutions responding to the survey reported a small number of Health Savings Accounts.

Sixty-nine percent of respondents reported 100 or less Health Savings Accounts, 18 percent reported 101 to 500 accounts and seven percent listed more than 500.

"Banks and credit unions know Health Savings Accounts present them with a significant business opportunity and additional way to better serve their customers," said Dave Roy, vice president and general manager, Banking, Wolters Kluwer Financial Services. "But it's also evident that this market is still relatively untapped, and the greatest potential lies ahead, especially as healthcare costs continue to climb and consumers look for more effective ways to save and finance those costs."

Wolters Kluwer Financial Services offers financial institutions a comprehensive, compliance-based set of HSA solutions, which includes:

-- HSA Director(TM), an online solution that allows institutions to automate such HSA-related business processes as eligibility, enrollment, account management, claims submission, expense substantiation, receipt storage, reporting, analysis, customer service and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) regulatory form filing;

-- Training to help staff understand and implement an HSA program;

-- Documents required to complete HSA transactions; and

-- A marketing program designed to help promote Health Savings Accounts and ensure the program's success.

To view the survey results, please visit: http://www.WoltersKluwerFS.com/HSAresults

For more information about all of Wolters Kluwer Financial Services' HSA solutions, you can visit: http://www.wolterskluwerfs.com/HSAsolutions