Your IndustryJan 13 2016

LV gives update on robo-advice

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LV gives update on robo-advice

LV is in discussions with adviser firms and insurance companies over sharing its automated advice system.

Philip Brown, LV’s head of retirement solutions transformation and policy, revealed he was in talks with assisting others with their own robo-advice propositions at the Westminster Business Forum conference on the future of fintech today (13 January).

“We have got to the stage where we can deliver automated advice for £200,” he stated. “We are in discussions with a variety of businesses, from IFAs to insurance companies, who are interested in using the software as a service.

“We think the innovation can be rolled out wider than just LV as a brand.”

In August last year LV bought a majority stake in robo-advice developer Wealth Wizards, confirming that it would launch an automated retirement advice service on an algorithm-based platform, which puts particularly complex cases through to telephone-based advisers.

Mr Brown said: “There has to be human contact involved so people understand the consequences of getting the data entry wrong. It could create systemic risk and systemic bad outcomes.”

Later in August, LV appointed David Stevens to the newly created role of head of automated advice strategy.

Having already led the development of the firm’s Clear Online Retirement Advice (Cora) service, he was tasked with its roll-out among advisers and corporate partners.

LV’s latest trading update in October revealed the firm had already been approached by providers, pension schemes and advisers keen to incorporate the Wizard technology into their systems.

In December, LV’s managing director of life and pensions Richard Rowney, who was on the regulator’s Financial Advice Market Review expert panel, told FTAdviser that his plan was to create an industry platform, sharing technology so that IFAs can upgrade their websites and allow customers to engage with advice simply and easily.

“We’re also asking for some standardisation across the industry, which would help the government implement its ‘pension passport’ plans, thereby reducing the time advisers have to take with fact finds,” he added.

So far, robo-advice ventures in the UK have mostly been speculative when compared with progress in the US, with Just Retirement making tentative moves into ‘simplified advice’, followed by more recent launches by software firm Intelliflo, Paradigm founding shareholder Anthony Morrow and just this week, acquisitive wealth manager Bellpenny.

This article was amended on Friday 15 January to reflect that fact that Mr Brown says the need for human contact is because of the risk of data entry being wrong, rather than the algorithm itself being wrong.