robo-advice today assessing best in class …...robo-advice today – assessing best in class...

Robo-Advice today – assessing best in class companies across Europe

Robo-Advisors continue to be ahead of the game com-pared to traditional Wealth Managers. More companies keep evolving, off ering digital and automated investment advice, bringing ever more variations of sophisticated Wealth and Asset Management methodology and tech-nology to the masses. The race is on and the relatively low Assets under Management (AuM) gained so far by existing Robo-Advice start-ups show that there is sig-nifi cant market share up for grabs.

If you have been following Deloitte’s series on Robo-Advice, you will know that this tech-nology democratizes previously exclusive investment management solutions and significantly reduces costs for consumers.We explored this topic in our first paper, “The expansion of Robo-Advisory in Wealth Management”1 , and we could even say that the situation is in many ways the banking equivalent of prototype racing, much like in Formula 1. Cutting-edge technology is craft-ed behind closed doors, then prototyped and launched in a highly competitive yet small environment. It takes years until the insights gained here enter mass produc- tion and become available to the public. But once they do, you don’t want to miss these things. We can all agree on the bene-fits, so now imagine life without them - the pre-improvement era. That’s where your money is right now.

But Robo-Advice has nearly completed its transition from prototype tech to mass market solution. We have arrived at the point where success has been proven and adoption by the public is picking up. Pioneers in the United States have gained significant size since inception and shown that they can sustain over time. SigFig, Betterment and Wealthfront, to name a few, have set an example and are still far from fulfilling their potential. To this day, all of them continue to grow very strongly.

Europe is currently considered to be a nascent market, but with the insights from overseas, risks for market entrants are significantly reduced. That’s probably one reason why there are so many com-panies offering some sort of Robo-Advice. People can see the potential, know which solution works, which features are in de-mand and which ones aren’t. Under these conditions, potentially strong competitors to traditional and incumbent Wealth Manag-ers rise quickly. An illustrative example in this case is the company easyfolio, which had been fast to bring its Robo-Advice

offering to the German market and was acquired in 2016 by Hauck & Aufhäuser, one of the most traditional private banks in Germany.

Today we at Deloitte Germany track well over 100 Robo-Advisors across the globe, and 40 of those originate in Europe have a foothold here. Sounds like a lot? Well, it is. And more keep popping up. Sure enough, not all will reach the threshold required to offer Robo-Advice services to customers in the long-run. But more importantly for Wealth Managers is the questions, who will emerge as a true competitor and change investment advice as we know it today.

To answer this question, we bring you the results from our deep-dive into the rising European Robo-Advisory market as a competitor matrix, ranking relevant features across pure B2C players (those with end consumer offerings) available as per No-vember 2016. The ranking identifies “best in class” Robo-Advisors for each section.

We recommend you review our previous articles to gain a deeper understanding of the topic:

• Article #1: “The expansion of Robo- Advisory in Wealth Management”, where we defined our views on the term Robo- Advisory and grouped the existing solu-tions into four evolutionary stages accord- ing to their technological sophistication.

• Article #2: “Same name, different game – a look at the German Robo-Advisor land-scape”, where we laid out the German Robo-Advisory landscape and identified major distinguishing factors, showing that not every Robo-Advisor is the same.2

• Article #3: “Cost-Income Ratios and Robo- Advisory”, where we analyzed the impact of Robo-Advisors’ cost structures on the Wealth Management segment and exam-ined the options Wealth Managers have to achieve benefits.3


1 https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/de/Documents/financial-services/Deloitte-Robo-safe.pdf2 https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/de/Documents/financial-services/Robo_No_2.pdf3 https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/de/Documents/financial-services/Robo-Advisory-in- Wealth-Management.pdf


Name/Category

Robo-Level

Cashboard 3.0

3.0Easyfolio

Easyvest

Fintego

Ginmon

Growney

Liqid

Marie Qantier

novofina

nutmeg

Quirion

Scalable Capital

Swanest

TrueWealth

Vaamo

VisualVest

Wealthify

Whitebox

Yomoni

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

AnlageFinder/MaxBlue

1.0

Degree of Portfolio- Individualization

UI/UX Online Visualization

Transparency &Ease of Use

Costs

Diversifikator 1.0

Meetinvest

United Signals 3.0

3.0

€

€ €

€ € €

€ €

€ €

€

€ € €

€

Best in ClassLow level of maturityMedium level of maturityHigh level of maturity

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B2C Ranking across Europe

Source: Deloitte Consulting GmbH

Name/Category

Robo-Level

Cashboard 3.0

3.0Easyfolio

Easyvest

Fintego

Ginmon

Growney

Liqid

Marie Qantier

novofina

nutmeg

Quirion

Scalable Capital

Swanest

TrueWealth

Vaamo

VisualVest

Wealthify

Whitebox

Yomoni

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0


1.0




Costs

Diversifikator 1.0

Meetinvest

United Signals 3.0

3.0

€

€ €

€ € €

€ €

€ €

€

€ € €

€


€

€ €

€ € €

€ € €

€

€ €

€ €

€

€ €

€ €

€ €

€

€ €

€ €

€ € €

Name/Category

Robo-Level

Cashboard 3.0

3.0Easyfolio

Easyvest

Fintego

Ginmon

Growney

Liqid

Marie Qantier

novofina

nutmeg

Quirion

Scalable Capital

Swanest

TrueWealth

Vaamo

VisualVest

Wealthify

Whitebox

Yomoni

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0


1.0




Costs

Diversifikator 1.0

Meetinvest

United Signals 3.0

3.0

€

€ €

€ € €

€ €

€ €

€

€ € €

€


€

€ €

€ € €

€ € €

€

€ €

€ €

€

€ €

€ €

€ €

€

€ €

€ €

€ € €

Name/Category

Robo-Level

Cashboard 3.0

3.0Easyfolio

Easyvest

Fintego

Ginmon

Growney

Liqid

Marie Qantier

novofina

nutmeg

Quirion

Scalable Capital

Swanest

TrueWealth

Vaamo

VisualVest

Wealthify

Whitebox

Yomoni

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0


1.0




Costs

Diversifikator 1.0

Meetinvest

United Signals 3.0

3.0

€

€ €

€ € €

€ €

€ €

€

€ € €

€


€

€ €

€ € €

€ € €

€

€ €

€ €

€

€ €

€ €

€ €

€

€ €

€ €

€ € €

Name/Category

Robo-Level

Cashboard 3.0

3.0Easyfolio

Easyvest

Fintego

Ginmon

Growney

Liqid

Marie Qantier

novofina

nutmeg

Quirion

Scalable Capital

Swanest

TrueWealth

Vaamo

VisualVest

Wealthify

Whitebox

Yomoni

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0


1.0




Costs

Diversifikator 1.0

Meetinvest

United Signals 3.0

3.0

€

€ €

€ € €

€ €

€ €

€

€ € €

€


€

€ €

€ € €

€ € €

€

€ €

€ €

€

€ €

€ €

€ €

€

€ €

€ €

€ € €

Name/Category

Robo-Level

Cashboard 3.0

3.0Easyfolio

Easyvest

Fintego

Ginmon

Growney

Liqid

Marie Qantier

novofina

nutmeg

Quirion

Scalable Capital

Swanest

TrueWealth

Vaamo

VisualVest

Wealthify

Whitebox

Yomoni

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0


1.0




Costs

Diversifikator 1.0

Meetinvest

United Signals 3.0

3.0

€

€ €

€ € €

€ €

€ €

€

€ € €

€


€

€ €

€ € €

€ € €

€

€ €

€ €

€

€ €

€ €

€ €

€

€ €

€ €

€ € €

Name/Category

Robo-Level

Cashboard 3.0

3.0Easyfolio

Easyvest

Fintego

Ginmon

Growney

Liqid

Marie Qantier

novofina

nutmeg

Quirion

Scalable Capital

Swanest

TrueWealth

Vaamo

VisualVest

Wealthify

Whitebox

Yomoni

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0

3.0


1.0




Costs

Diversifikator 1.0

Meetinvest

United Signals 3.0

3.0

€

€ €

€ € €

€ €

€ €

€

€ € €

€


€

€ €

€ € €

€ € €

€

€ €

€ €

€

€ €

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To create the Robo-Advisory ranking, we chose five distinct criteria to evaluate the players currently in the market. To start with, in our first abstract we elaborated on four Robo-Advisory levels of evolution that range of service and capabilities. Findings show that Robo-Advisors 1.0 only offer basic functionalities, such as an online questionnaire that identifies which products among the listed ETFs, bonds and shares suit the client’s interests best. Robo-Advisors 2.0 expand on this function with risk-based allocation and managed portfolio adjustments. However, the major-ity of Robo-Advisors currently operating in the market, a full 80%, can be classified as Robo-Advisors 3.0. They have developed proprietary algorithms to manage portfolios in accordance with pre-defined invest-ment rule-sets and make rebalancing pro-posals for the client. Robo-Advisors 4.0 are the next step of the evolution and offer fully automated portfolio management based on self-learning algorithms that automati-cally perform asset shifts as required with regard to the cur-rent market cycle.

The next category, the degree of portfolio individualization, assesses the diversity of portfolios offered by Robo-Advisors. Robo-Advisory offerings vary between three stand-ard portfolio allocations and highly custom-izable and individualized portfolios. We have also analyzed the asset mix and diversifica-tion in terms of asset classes. Robo-Advisors are renowned for attrac-tive user front-ends that change roles and allow clients to sit in the driving seat when itcomes to portfolio reallocation or simple money matters like setting up sav- ing plans. Front-ends are intuitive and user-friendly, and provide additional customer support benefits in the form of live chats, chat bots and direct messaging options; however, most Robo-Advisors have ad-vanced user experience facilities when


compared against each other. Particu- larly user-friendly websites and apps offer explanatory visualizations, videos, chat clients or bots for instant customer support. Some set themselves apart from the crowd with very intuitive dashboards, analysis tools with comprehensive visual-izations and many options for customer support, for example hotlines and FAQ sections. In addition, transparency with regard to their respective services offered and pricing structures is a distinguishing factor. Therefore, the UX/UI, with particular attention to online Visualizations, as well as Ease of Use with regard to transparency, navigation, and search factors, have been assessed.

Another criterion is what Fees Robo-Advi-sory firms charge for their service offering. Especially among B2C providers, low fee structures are a strong selling argument. To make fees comparable across different fee structures, which can comprise management fees on AuM, performance fees and/or fixed fees, we calculated average fees on EUR 50k invested with the Robo-Advisor. 4 Thus, Robo-Advisors with the lowest fees on this investment size have an advantage over comparable offerings with higher fees.

The factors described above were evalu-ated by Deloitte with a pre-defined rating system, and a “best in class” Robo-Advisor selected for each category. As service offer-ings are evolving and Robo-Advisors are continuing to develop their business mod-els, this ranking is a snapshot of the current landscape in late 2016.

While it looks exhaustive, the print version only shows a small fraction of the research and deliberately neglects offerings that are purely offered as B2B solutions which are white labeled and offered only through partners such as private banks or Wealth Management firms.

4 The evaluation of fee structures may vary for less or more assets invested as many Robo-Advisors differentiate their pricing in a price scale depending on the investment size.

Contact usDominik Moulliet Senior ManagementFinancial Services SolutionsTel: + 49 (0)69 97137 198Mobile: + 49 (0)151 58071 047Email: [email protected]

Thomas VölkerManagerFinancial Services SolutionsTel: +49 (0)69 97137 180Mobile: +49 (0)151 58071 127Email: [email protected]

Frank DahlenkampConsultantFinancial Services SolutionsTel: +49 (0)69 97137 179Mobile: +49 (0)151 58071398Email: [email protected]

Julian StolzenbachManagerFinancial Services SolutionsTel: + 49 (0)69 97137 179Mobile: +49 (0)172 131 4669Email: [email protected]

Ilma WagnerConsultantFinancial Services SolutionsTel: + 49 (0)40 32080 4531Mobile: +49 (0)151 58070 336Email: [email protected]

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