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2017-10-31 10:23:33
Automated wealth managers are getting bigger, but they still manage a very
small portion of total assets
EXCHANGE-TRADED funds (ETFs) were supposed to make investing easy. Instead of
spending hours researching individual stocks and bonds or paying an expert fund
manager, investors could simply buy a few ETFs. But now there are too many to
choose from. BlackRock offers 346 in America alone. Some investors need help
allocating their money between different funds. Many companies now offer
automated wealth managers (AWMs) that perform this service.
AWMs have been around for less than ten years, but they have proliferated,
offering different services in different countries. Often, they are called
robo-advisers , but this term can be misleading. Some offer clients detailed
advice about how to save. For example, Wealthfront, an American AWM, predicts
the cost of sending a student to a given college, taking into account increases
in tuition fees and likely financial aid. It then suggests how parents can save
in a tax-efficient way. Other AWMs are simpler. Wealthify, based in Cardiff,
rejects the term robo-adviser because it does not provide advice. It merely
allocates clients funds based on how much they wish to invest, when they
expect to need the money and the degree of risk they will accept.
Nonetheless, AWMs have a few things in common. They typically invest in
low-cost ETFs and charge very low fees. Annual charges are usually only a
fraction of a percentage point of an investor s total savings, plus any fees
levied by the ETFs.
AWMs target cash-conscious investors who cannot afford or do not wish to pay a
human adviser. Millennials are considered good customers because they are used
to doing things online and are starting to earn money. But generally they do
not have a lot of it. Individual savers tend to have small portfolios. At
Betterment, the largest independent American AWM measured by assets under
management, the average client had $27,400 in June 2017. At Wealthfront, its
rival, the average client had $40,900.
Their business model leaves AWMs with a problem. To make a profit despite low
fees, they must attract lots of client money. Michael Wong, an analyst at
Morningstar, an investment research firm, estimates that, depending on its
model, an AWM would need between $16bn and $40bn to cover its costs. No
independent AWMs have reached profitability, though some are close. Betterment
says it has $11bn under management.
But for most AWMs, profitability remains distant. Only a few manage over $1bn
or have more than 100,000 clients. To get more clients, many are tying up with
established wealth managers. On October 5th Aviva, a British insurer, said it
would buy a majority stake in Wealthify. Michelle Pearce, Wealthify s
co-founder and chief investment officer, noted that Aviva has 15m customers in
Britain, who can use her firm s services through Aviva s portal.
To stay independent, AWMs need to get big quickly, in part by seeking customers
established firms neglect. Similarly, acquired AWMs often pitch their products
to people their parent firms would not otherwise serve. These customers tend to
have little wealth and to be new investors. There are dangers in this: they may
place too much faith in AWMs more optimistic projections of future riches.
Wealthfront even allows customers to borrow at 3.5-4.75% against the value of
their savings without selling off their portfolios and disrupting their
investment strategies. Like their human counterparts, robos may have a tendency
to oversell their investing prowess.
Clarification (October 27th, 2017): This piece has been updated to clarify
Wealthfront s policy on allowing people to borrow against their savings.