Ten thousand baby boomers are retiring in the US each day – an incredible opportunity for financial firms, according to Mark Halverson, a partner in the capital markets practice at Accenture.

Or an incredible threat. That’s because as they move closer to retirement, boomers, who often have accounts scattered across multiple firms, are reducing the number of financial accounts they hold. As consumers consolidate accounts, firms will continue their own consolidation through mergers, like Ameritrade and TD Waterhouse, or E*Trade and Harris Direct.

“The market needs continued consolidation to provide a low cost structure through economies of scale,” Halverson said.

Firms are clearly interested in customers with less than $200,000 in investable assets, because they represent an underserved market that brokers, with relatively high fixed costs, can’t reach. But the only way to serve it profitably is with more technology.

“If someone creates a high touch relationship in a low cost way, they have an untapped market ahead of them,” said Halverson. “Some of these folks have a very high potential. They may show a smaller number of assets, but it is hard to tell if they will inherit, or if they hold more assets away.”