Money and technology are so closely related that if a financial advisor isn’t employing the latest technology, how will it equate to risk for you and your money? When it comes to managing your money, you expect your financial advisor to have the best technology resources available to do the job.
Since the last recession, the financial services industry is leading the way in technology development, with healthcare second and other sectors closely following.
Among the new technologies, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning are in first place for the top development trend in financial services. The acceptance of AI at large financial companies has still deemed a threat to the old system of money management but continues to be widely accepted by established advisors (ages 35-44) even more so than advisors that are new to the industry. New technology is helping clients and advisors to be more efficient in managing assets and their risk.
One of the new developments using AI is in behavioral finance software that determines client behaviors and their adversity to risk before selecting funds, ETFs and other assets to be managed inside portfolios. No longer should selection be done manually when AI can search funds with precision based on client behavioral perimeters. Without an assessment of client behaviors before market activity, potential losses may impact the client and be more difficult to recover.
When behavioral finance software combines with risk profiling, the assessment of misaligned investment choices can be overridden helping to build better portfolios based on scientific data and not solely on past performance. Without behavioral considerations, misaligned investment choices aren’t just possible, but likely.
Investment managers must continuously upgrade their technology infrastructure to keep up with client expectations and best practices to continually improve the client experience and make advisors better at their jobs. While robo technology, or portfolio automation, continues to become an accepted part of the investment equation for younger clients with fewer assets, to clients transferring wealth to future generations, artificial intelligence and machine learning are the next great frontier.
