What do you think about machines replacing financial consultants?

I think the answer is actually very simple.

And this answer does not apply ONLY to financial consultants.

It applies to any sales function B to C or B to B.

Machines facilitate completion of deals. But not everybody is ready to buy and complete a deal.

A lot of consumers are on the fence. For certain products that you are not familiar with, you probably are also a consumer on the fence.

But people buy from people. And to make a decision, some prefer a little persuasion or validation to be comfortable before taking a step. It could be a personality trait. It could be a situational uniqueness.

If you have been in a sales function, you'd kind of understand this.

The sales function of any business, finance or not, is to lend leadership and hope to the customer to take a step forward. Buy a solution to solve the problem.

Dear Anonymous, thanks for the question and sorry for the late reply. As you might know, MoneyOwl is a bionic financial adviser. To be Bionic means to have the best of both worlds – humans and technology. Technology integrates complex financial models into your financial plan with ease and precision. But we understand that money is very personal and involves emotions, aspirations and life decisions. That’s why both our dedicated client advisers and our technology platforms come together to journey with clients throught their stages in life.

One more thing about the importance of the human element in advice. While it is easy to design and recommend an investment portfolio using technology, what is tough is when the markets becomes very volatile, or when the markets tank, or even when the markets become exuberantly bullish, machines cannot help us stay invested or prevent us from making silly decisions. This is when human intervention is necessary, to do the risk/investment coaching to help us make sensible decisions.

So I don't think that machines will replace humans. But it is really up to humans to work with machines.

Hope this helps.