F&TRC launches robo-advice service ratings

Digital Wealth Insights will provide independent analysis of robo-advice from the business-to-business, direct-to-consumer and adviser software sectors. Other key areas of the evolving digital consumer finance market, such as personal financial management and micro savings, will also be examined.

The analysis will begin with 20 advice propositions but F&TRC says it aims to add a further 5-10 reviews each month.

The service will offer information for anyone looking to add digital wealth proposition to their own service or to invest in the digital and automated advice market, such as wealth managers and advisers, fintech developers and consultants, private equity firms, and individual or venture capital investors.

The categories analysed include a firm's target audience, pricing, product offering, strengths and areas for further improvement, core functionality and key principles, and investment vehicles.

Ian McKenna, Director at F&TRC, said: “We have spent five years examining how financial services is evolving in the digital era, both in the UK and internationally, as well as over two decades of expertise in analysing financial technology. So, we are perfectly placed to create a thorough, objective series of metrics to analyse the main players in the market as well as the up-and-coming disrupters.

“There is a wealth of research in this area but the challenge is that because of the diversity of propositions it is very hard to compare these services consistently, as so many services are trying to do different things. To address this challenge, we started by creating a clear model of all the different types of services and the key components in each one. Using our model, we can produce more effective comparisons which can highlight the differences between various offerings.

“Importantly we have also added our own opinions on the overall impressions the proposition left on us. There are many new offerings that have huge potential but haven’t quite realised it yet, although with time and investment they may do so. We wanted to recognise this potential in a way that objective metrics can’t always highlight. The size of this sector is vast and growing so we have started with a summary of some big players and also some exciting smaller ones and will grow the analysis month on month.”