Robo-Advisor, consulenza finanziaria e profili regolamentari: quale soluzione per un fenomeno in fieri?

The paper addresses the issue of FinTech and digitalization of financial services. It will especially focus the growing use of automated tools in providing financial advice (the so-called Robo-Advisors) which improves the availability of the service, but poses different problems for the consumer protection. In fact, Robo-Advisors use modern algorithms and web platforms in order to create portfolio models or to provide investment recommendations for retail investors, with or without human intervention. Financial innovation might be an opportunity both for consumers and firms, but the automation trend is a challenge for regulators who have to evaluate the benefits and the risks linked to the use of automated financial advice tools as well as its impact on the distribution chain. Only after careful consideration, they will be able to decide whether introduce new rules for the consumer protection or, on the contrary, whether the existing framework already assesses the regulation of a this still growing phenomenon. In the latter case, they would continue to monitor the possible barriers to the development of automated advice.