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Anonymous

07 Jun 2019

Robo-Advisors

How is MoneyOwl different from normal financial advisory? Is giving cash rebates actually legal under MAS ruling?

I'm an agent with a local insurer and I have my doubts. Is this something that we need to be worried about? How do we fight against this or is there are anything which I am missing out? Because I read the press releases over the weekend and think that rebates baiting seems like a stretch from what MAS is going for and what insurers are accustomed to. How can MoneyOwl really be a non-profit? Does not seem to work very well from my knowledge of business operations.

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Shawn Lee

07 Jun 2019

Lead, Advisory at MoneyOwl

Hi.

Thank you for your questions and I hope to be able to help with your doubts.

On your question if MoneyOwl is a non-profit, as mentioned in the recent Business Times article (3rd Nov by Genevieve Cua), MoneyOwl is not a non-profit organisation. However, we do not seek to maximise profits. What we really hope to do is to balance between being financially sustainable and yet still able to give good advice in an affordable manner. We believe that there is this gap that needs to be closed and consumers will appreciate it.

It is not illegal to provide commissions rebates. In the case of MoneyOwl, what we are doing is to only rebate to consumers when they have a need. We can do that because we lower our cost through tech and hiring salaried advisers, and we pass on this savings to them.

On your other queries, may I ask what your doubts are, what you are worried about, what you are fighting against and what do you mean, "it does not work very well from my knowledge of business operations"? This will help us better address your questions.

Thank you.

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Colin Lai

05 Nov 2018

Client Adviser at MoneyOwl

If they leverage on technology to make it really clear to their customers why they are getting the policies throught their bionic advisory service, they can scale, reach reasonably more in numbers with less profitable but suitable product sales and make a sustainable ethical profit. Its hard to do the math. But you can be assured we wont see them with crazy rich lifestyles!

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