The results come from an online survey from GlobalData conducted among 27,000 consumers in 27 markets.
A major finding of the research was that a consumer’s main bank still holds strong as the favoured option for arranging investments.
This trend, generally, holds true across generations and geographies.
When refined by generation: 35% of millennials, 33% of generation X, and 28% of baby boomers, globally, prefer their banks.
The next most popular option across all generations is to self-arrange investments.
The GlobalData survey said 19% of millennials choose to arrange their own investments, with 27% of generation X also preferring this option.
There are some markets that use other options more than their main bank. For example, only 17.3% of retail investors in the US use a financial planner at their main bank, with 20.3% opting to arrange investments themselves.
Why the slow growth?
A GlobalData spokesperson said the low popularity of robo-advice across the generations could be viewed as a reflection of it still being in its infancy.
The spokesperson said while there is room in the industry for some “pure play” robo-advice companies, realistically it is more likely that banks will make use of automated investment services to run alongside their traditional face-to-face advisory capabilities.
They said the true opportunity for robo-advice companies lies in selling their technology to banks.
The countries surveyed were Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Denmark, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Italy, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Singapore, Sweden, Taiwan, the UAE, the UK, and the US.
