Technology has been a major force driving businesses in the present competitive era. No business process has remained immune from the effects of technology and financial advisory is no exception. Nowadays, robo-advisors provide financial planning services through automated algorithms with no human intervention. Mumbai-based Fintoo is showing the way forward; this fintech launched its robo advisory platform in April 2021. Since then 4900+ users have registered on the platform and availed of the benefit of a tangible and actionable financial plan which can be referred to for execution of applicable investment instruments.
“More than 80% of these users are salaried professionals from tier 1 and tier 2 cities. This target audience is digitally-savvy and on the lookout for a reasonable price for wealth advisory services,” says Manish P Hingar, founder at Fintoo. “This is that lot who does not have the resources to employ a personal wealth manager who will fill in all their personal information and create a customised financial plan and then charge an exorbitant fee for the same.”
Fintoo is a fast-growing platform dedicated to helping people take sound financial decisions. They are disrupting the financial space by introducing innovative technology like advice on-the-go, while simultaneously offering to connect users to qualified financial and taxation advisors. Over the last few years, the company has developed cutting-edge robo advisors to provide accurate financial advice.
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Talking about the benefits of robo advisory versus traditional methods, Hingar says, “Robo advisory has had its roots since 2008 when Jon Stein, with his roommate and friends, founded Betterment. The origin of this robo advisory platform was centered around the 2008 economic crisis. The aim was to help people who were struggling to make their investments give some returns. Stein felt the need to provide an easy-to-use platform which would give a tangible benefit of customised wealth advisory at the click of a button.
“Till today, robo advisory platforms offer this core benefit of course. However with the advent of AI, these platforms have matured to mimic behavioural finance which makes an end-user as comfortable providing his/her personal financial information to a robo advisor as he/she is to a human advisor,” he reveals.
Since its inception in 2015, Fintoo started off as a distribution entity. Even though the goal was investment execution, the wealth managers at Fintoo noticed that investments which were done after basic analysis of the clients risk appetite and other parameters like current assets and liabilities, income and expenses, goal analysis yielded much better returns. And then with SEBI coming up with the RIA (Registered Investment Advisor) mandate, Hingar took the decision to pivot the Fintoo vision towards wealth advisory.
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A complete academic research has been done by Gianna Figa Talamanca, professor at the University of Perugia, Italy, on the robo advisor acceptance from the gender and generation perspective, points out Hingar. The research has suggested that the path to adoption of a robo-advisor is quite different for Gen Y and Z. Both are driven towards adoption based on the perceived ease of use. However, while Generation Y stresses more on the potential usefulness of the technology, Generation Z may be significantly driven towards adoption directly from ease of use, without considering its usefulness. Recent numbers by online platform Statista indicate rapid growth in robo advisory adoption.
The bottomline: Grow your money with genuine expert advice, even if it comes from a bot.