The development of digital investment advisors has given savers a relative plethora of options as to how they grow their wealth. Many offer convenience, ease, low fees and control when saving, but they’re by no means a panacea for the issues with traditional investing.
You’d be forgiven for thinking that digital wealth managers rely on technology to automate processes that should be handled by humans, and some do. It’s a question we get asked a lot – ‘does being a digital wealth manager mean letting a machine handle my savings?’. In short, though, with Moneyfarm the answer is no.
We have always known that, to build an effective service, technology has to be underpinned by human expertise and guidance. We have an experienced team of portfolio managers who dictate our investment strategy, as well as a highly qualified team of investment advisors to talk our customers through their options.
Investments created by experts
As a robo-advisor, some of our digital investment advice is automated and we use an algorithm – run once a day for each client – which keeps your portfolio up to scratch. Further than that, it’s fundamental to our business to have qualified, dedicated experts central to the creation and monitoring of all our client accounts.
Most of the decisions related to where and how we invest money are taken by our Asset Allocation Team. Often in direct conversation with our chairman and CEO about decisions made, the team manages the process of investing and allocating money every step of the way.
The Asset Allocation Team debates, measures and approves every decision related to client portfolios. Their primary role is to monitor the choice of investment model and the quality of the input and output. They also manage the risk inherent in the portfolios, by selecting the boundaries of each asset class and by reviewing the output of the optimisation algorithm.
Led by Chief Investment Officer Richard Flax, our Asset Allocation Team is one vital area in which we blend technology with real human expertise. Technology can speed up processes and work with data on a macro level, but nothing beats decades of experience.
Real investment advice
Hear ‘robo-advisor’ and many people assume they will be dealing, principally, with robots. It’s a reasonable assumption, but one that we actively look to challenge with our investment advisory team – highly-qualified advisors on-hand to answer questions and guide investors through their options.
It’s a team that exists solely to make the experience of investing with Moneyfarm as frictionless as possible. You’ll always have the right mix of assets, the appropriate level of risk, and an investment portfolio that grows and evolves with you. For bigger questions, or for when you want to talk to someone about your account, you can call, email, chat online or even catch up in person with a member of our team.
Regular portfolio checkups
The key to maintaining healthy investments is the regular assessment of how our portfolios are balanced. Each portfolio risk level is made up of a different blend of assets, all of which can be altered if market movement dictates. For example, in response to the coronavirus crisis, we rebalanced and were able to avoid some of the short term fluctuations that made the markets so difficult.
This performance review is another job carried out by the Asset Allocation Team. The team periodically reviews portfolio performance across our risk levels, both in absolute terms and relative to our peers. Our portfolio managers monitor these factors on a daily basis, making changes where necessary and ensuring everything is finely tuned.
At the start of every year, we also take a step back to reassess our broader asset allocation strategy for the coming decade. We reflect on the risk and return expectations of our investors and how the different asset classes we use have performed relative to our projections, while also looking ahead to the medium and long term to ensure our strategy still fits the bill. This long term vision is shared with all our investors and is a useful look at the bigger picture as a supplement to our regular checkups.
