What is roboadvice, anyway?

Roboadvice is one of the new terms to be used a lot in our business. There is some difference of opinion about what it really means. Some are interpreting the term broadly, and for them there are two main uses.

The first includes any combinations of websites and systems that help customers do some self-assessment and create an inquiry for bespoke financial advice that you might give in your current, human-delivered, process. I like the idea of using technology in this way and we should do more of it.

All the research around how consumers are investigating purchases online, but many then complete them with an adviser, supports this kind of development.

The second is the use of technology to make the preparation of a statement of advice much faster for an adviser. Once again this makes a lot of sense. Quotemonster is an example on the risk side – so is X-Plan by IRESS, Practifi on Salesforce, and many more systems like them. Some seek to offer an end-to-end solution, whereas others try to be good at just a couple of parts of the process.