Will Robo-Advisors Replace Traditional Financial Planners?
The past decade has seen the rise of numerous automated investment management platforms -- "robo advisors" -- that are said to threaten the very existence of the human advice industry. While these services provide core offerings that can and do act as portfolio centerpieces, automated investment managers come with a number of drawbacks that may have a significant impact on their ability to grow into the future. A holistic exploration of the advantages and disadvantages of robo-advisors, especially in comparison to human-delivered advice, is warranted.
Lets look at two advantages first:
Robo-advisors are elegant tools that do their best to minimize investing costs and streamline their clients' financial lives. FinTech firms like Betterment and Wealthfront have developed easy-to-use interfaces that allow clients to become fully invested after answering a simple questionnaire. Once invested -- usually in a low-cost portfolio of ETFs -- clients are able to go back to their everyday lives without thinking about their investments again, other than to add more money to their portfolio or open a new account.
Source Fool.com
