Manulife has announced its robotic advisor could be the future of the business as it plans to roll out the tech in Hong Kong. The investment firm has already trialled the autonomous finance solution that can help its asset management and insurance customers making better decisions.
“Our asset and wealth management businesses in the US and Canada have been experimenting with this quite some time and we adopted some of their successful ideas in the Hong Kong market,” Guy Mills, Hong Kong-based chief executive at Manulife International. “We do see an important role for using the technology that robo-advisors are using.”
He said the robo-advisor would help the company’s clients choose the best investments and allocate funds, whether they’re looking to invest in mutual funds, pension products or an investment-linked assurance scheme.
Such a service would be attractive to the firm’s 26 million global customer base that have so far invest $829.4bn in assets. That’s a big chunk of money that could be invested more intelligently using an automated platform.
Although it’s the first time Manulife has spoken about the possibilities its platform will bring, there are already many businesses looking at this kind of technology. For example, Standard Chartered Bank has announced it’s integrating AI into its services – a big focus of which is on robo-advisory, while Convoy Investment Services has teamed up with robo-advisory service firm Aqumon to potentially offer a robo-advisory platform too.
The news of Manulife’s decision to expand the reach of its robotic advisory platform comes hot n the heels that it’s had to lay-off employees to make room for automated services. Back in June, the company said it would need to cut its workforce by 700 employees as it pushes towards a more digital operation.
However, there may well be new opportunities created as it recruits engineers and digital specialists to join its tech team.
