Digital Asset Management in 2020 – Seven Theses

Today, many announcements indicate that most banks will provide a robo‐advisor soon. Differing from the offline world, robo‐advisors can adopt new regulatory requirements without intense training of the workforce or replacement of material. They can implement requirements like suitability checks or product governance before the regulation is in place. Robo‐advisors collect early feedback on managing the intersection of conversions and compliance. This chapter explores two generations of robo‐advisors: The first generation were simple onboarding tools. The second generation offered discretionary portfolio management, covering regular rebalancings and dashboards to monitor the portfolio. Rebundling is expected to gain relevance in robo‐advice. Regulation plays a central role in robo‐advice. Today's asset management industry is complex. The value chain covers research, product manufacture, several steps of bundling and distribution, which itself contains multiple players such as brokers, advisors, insurers and banks. This complexity has its cost, which the customer needs to carry.