Robo-Advice

May
03

KPMG sees robots taking over tax compliance

When 800 executives were surveyed for a World Economic Forum report published in September 2015, three-quarters said company audits would be performed by artificial intelligence by 2021. A similar proportion reckoned the world would have witnessed the first tax collected via blockchain within that timeframe, while 45 per cent said robots would be occupying places at the board room table. Clearly, the tax profession is ripe for digital disruption. In a new briefing paper, KPMG envisages a world where much tax compliance work is done by machines, leaving humans to pick up the more complex tasks. While computers will do the heavy lifting on the number crunching front, tasks requiring […]

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Apr
26

Advisers urged to dump simplistic advice to drive growth

Financial planners need to be prepared to shed some clients and rebuild their value proposition if they are to achieve sustainable growth, according to a new white paper released by Matrix Planning Solutions and ClearView Financial Advice. The whitepaper, which has drawn on the experiences of Matrix advisers, argues that for financial planners to deal with the competitive pressures being driven by robo-advice and industry superannuation funds, they need to deliver a better value proposition. “In order for advisers to remain compliant and secure in their position as trusted adviser, they must continuously add value,” it said. “The way to continuously add value is to delve deeper into their clients’ […]

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Apr
24

Macquarie’s plan to beat the investment robots

Investing robots and index funds are poaching billions of dollars from human fund managers, but Macquarie Investment Management head of the Americas Shawn Lytle says the firm is repositioning to cope with the seismic shift into passive investing. Globally, droves of investors are yanking money from high-fee active managers and parking their funds in passive strategies such as exchange-traded funds that ride the ups and downs of select markets. Macquarie Investment Management, a global division which manages about $US257 billion of Macquarie Group’s $US362 billion in assets under management, is aiming to differentiate by offering more unique actively managed equities, bonds and alternative assets such as infrastructure. “We are at […]

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Apr
18

Robo adviser Six Park says lower balance SMSFs are viable

A robo adviser backed by four founding members of the Future Fund says that pre-retirees with starting balances of under $150,000 can run their own super funds, despite the corporate watchdog cracking down on providers that offer low-balance SMSF set-ups. The chief executive of Six Park Patrick Garrett said that the robo adviser, which counts the former federal finance minister Lindsay Tanner as both a financial backer and an advisory board member, is launching a lower-cost establishment service to make self-managed superannuation funds more “accessible” and easier to run, particularly for those with small balances. “I wouldn’t recommend a $10,000 SMSF account. But we have one of our first clients, […]

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Mar
31

A view to the future of investment operations

Blockchain, artificial intelligence, robotics, automated data entry and data mining are some of the big technological trends set to radically disrupt the way the back-office teams of superannuation funds and their service providers do their jobs in the not-too-distant future. The onslaught of change confronting investment operations teams is not limited to technology, though. The shift in assets to the deaccumulation phase, mergers, growth in funds under management and unrelenting regulatory changes are forcing industry players to make serious decisions about what to prioritise. Investment operations refers to all the cogs of the financial services machinery, and covers areas such as the implementation of investment transactions, performance reporting, analytics, fund […]

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Feb
21

Digital advice: from robo revolution to enterprise evolution

As digital financial advice gains ever-growing traction among superannuation providers, the hype around “robo-advice” gives way to enterprise-level requirements. Decimal Software CEO Nic Pollock says B2C wealth management and enterprise-grade digital financial advice serve very different needs, and customers. Federal Treasurer Scott Morrison recently told a G20 conference in Germany of his plans to encourage more robo-adviser start-ups to launch in Australia. Undoubtedly he believed doing so would enhance opportunities for more Australians to gain access to financial advice and in turn provide better financial security and retirement outcomes. But his comments highlight a general lack of understanding of the differences between “robo-advisers” and the digital advice needs of the […]

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BetaSmartz automated investment launches in Asia

BetaSmartz, the B2B automated investment platform for all sizes of investors, from institutional to retail, today announced it had opened offices in Hong Kong. BetaSmartz offers ‘hybrid ‘ digital investment or ‘robo’ advice that combines automated and face-to-face financial advice. Newly appointed Managing Director Asia, Zak Allom, said this model had been well received since its launch in 2015, with several clients now live including two in the U.S. “Robo has been a big buzzword, but for the most part the actual delivery hasn’t been different from the automated financial planning software we’ve been used to since the 90s,” he said. “BetaSmartz is much more than a sexy front end […]

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Feb
14

Dart aims for a United States of Fintech

Australian tech entrepreneurs have launched a new digital home for the global fintech community, providing an agnostic platform that founders hope will one day become the seat for an inclusive and encyclopaedic fintech commonwealth. Founder and CEO, Cameron Dart, told AB+F that the International FinTech platform, combines a web portal and directory to meet growing demand from the global community to have a dedicated, online and natively fintech presence for a sector that transcends borders. “We like to think of it as the beginnings of a LinkedIn for fintech,” Dart said. This week’s launch, built on the back of the original Australian FinTech, already encompasses more than 1,000 global fintech companies […]

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