How Will Robo-Advisors Reshape Asset Management?
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HOW WILL ROBO-ADVISORS RESHAPE ASSET MANAGEMENT? HOW WILL ROBO-ADVISORS RESHAPE ASSET MANAGEMENT? INITIO – FEB 2019 By Marie-Charlotte RENAUX, Margaux RUDNICKI, Alexandre BENIERE, and Frédéric LORAIN, CFA www.initio.eu 4 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY obo-advisors are a complete match with our an opportunity to leverage on large economies of scale DNA. That’s why we chose at Initio to dive in both allowing to reduce costs and remain competitive, R this topic in 2018. Indeed, as a consultancy potentially unlocking a reservoir of population in fi rm specialized in change management in the Finance demand for more than basic asset management and Banking industry, this innovation covers most of services but not necessarily targeted by the industry our range of activities, assisting our clients with their until now. projects and bringing them our expertise whether the Almost everybody we met conducting this study was emphasis is put on: convinced that within a 4 to 5 years timeframe, most - digitalization, or all of the assets processed by the industry would go through, either directly or indirectly, a fully automated - regulatory compliance and risk management, algorithm driven robo-advisor. Wealth managers and - organizational structural change or private bankers were amongst the most reluctant since - simply business enhancements. this technology is still viewed as a mass market rather cheap way of delivering basic services and thus not To do so, we wanted to go beyond the web and acquire being relevant to serve their high-end clientele. our own data. Hence, we decided to start with a global Robo-advisors indeed allow a self-service digital presentation of basic concepts and key defi nitions, 5 distribution of asset management services, mixing both in order to understand what is behind this concept the advantages of low management fees from passive covering a broad range of possible set-ups. Then, management while retaining some of the benefi ts of we wanted to present you with the current state of a relatively more adaptative and active allocation than the market globally, with the US taking the lead and just pure indexing. But it is also a tool that can be by far in terms of aum (assets under management) used by portfolio managers or fi nancial advisors that but also many local and international actors launching could help them achieve even higher quality standards, their services in the EU and in Asia. To complete this enabling them to widen their scope, to clear them overview, we gathered and put in parallel the vision from certain basic tasks and allow them to focus on of 13 robo-advisory experts, interviewed over the more elaborate complex issues. They basically enable summer 2018, bringing some interesting and valuable providing customers with a tailor-made service with a qualitative insights. In order to assess the user as well digital point of contact and a standardized system in a as the professional perception, we also conducted a compliant and affordable manner. survey with 310 respondents both professional and retail investors, adding some quantitative data to our Robo-advisors are a component of this major wave study. Finally we summed up our recommendations in of transformation that is impacting our whole way of order to successfully deploy a robo-advisor structured conceiving, developing and distributing added value, as “ten commandments”. products and services in general as professionals. Our way of getting in touch with the industry and selecting In the annexes you will also fi nd: our investment services as customers is also changing - the one pager presenting our commercial offer, drastically. The ongoing digital revolution will deeply - a quick recap presenting the conference Initio orga- affect and modernize both the structure of the industry nized with the support of the LHoFT (Luxembourg and the conception we have from asset management House of Financial Technology) in October 2018, and banking services. As most major changes do, this shift comes with a fair share of fears and doubts on - the full transcripts of the 13 experts interviews. the one hand as well as optimism, enthusiasm and The main insight would be that robo-advisors bring in excitement on the other hand. TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 09 PART. 1: KEY CONCEPTS AND BASIC DEFINITIONS OF ROBO-ADVISORY....................................... 10 A bit of context ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 12 Does the name Robo-Advisor fi t the technology? .................................................................................................................................................................................................... 12 What is a Robo-Advisor? .................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 13 The Onboarding block ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 14 The Asset Allocation block .................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 14 2 implementation modes ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 15 3 management modes ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 15 The main Benefi ts and Drawbacks .................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 16 The Recipe for tomorrow’s robo-advisory services ................................................................................................................................................................................................ 17 The Interface: “Towards the end of Mobile Apps?” by Anthony Monteiro .................................................................................................................................. 19 Big Data: “When Big Data meets Robo Advisory” by Cecile Graff ........................................................................................................................................................ 20 Artifi cial Intelligence: “The intelligent Investor and Robo-Advisors” by Gregory Rogival .......................................................................................... 21 PART. 2: MARKET INSIGHTS AND BENCHMARKING – WHO DOES WHAT? ................................... 22 The cost issue and the need to scale up................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 24 The numerous development strategies .................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 25 Partnerships/Acquisitions .................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 25 Advertising and marketing ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 25 Raise capital .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 26 7 Other strategies ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................