How North Americans Can Grow Their Wealth
The nature of wealth is a little different from income. Whereas income represents your current standard of living and what you can currently enjoy, wealth represents the past living standards that you voluntarily forwent in favor of being able to enjoy more at a future date.
Wealth is a very important economic indicator that many financial analysts follow. It is important because wealth can also be used as a shield against unforeseen circumstances which might otherwise derail your finances and affect you and those close to you. Wealth is definitely something that is rightfully closely monitored and studied.
Because of the sheer size of the American market, wealth management has taken nearly countless forms and has also been able to make its way North of the border. Over the past years there has been a rise in popularity of robo advisors in Canada, as well as investment apps with a French language option. The business of preserving and growing wealth is seeking to include as many people as possible, hence the expanding market and scope of investments.
Virtual Wealth Management
The exponential nature of technological advancement has meant that industry after industry has been upended over the past couple decades. The financial industry is not immune to this. In fact, the proliferation of sophisticated computer programs has meant that financial advice has become increasingly dispersed and democratized.
Traditionally, you would have to see an actual financial advisor in person in order to set up an investment plan and use a physical broker in order to execute those investments. Nowadays, all you need is an electronic device and a good internet connection and you will be able to install an investment app that has a built-in robo advisor that will assist you with your investment plan and goals.
The robo advisor will first ask you to key in relevant information about your finances in order to get a decent picture of where you currently stand financially. The robo advisor will then ask you to paint a picture of where you would like to be several years down the road and what your financial goals and aspirations are.
Once that has all been done, the robo advisor will then run the information through its program and will very quickly come up with a comprehensive plan to that you can use to achieve your financial goals. The more information the robo advisor has regarding your financial position, the more accurate its profile of you will be, and the better the plan it will be able to devise that suits your situation the best.
Robo Advising in the Great White North
Having first started off in the United States, robo advisors and investment apps in general have slowly but surely made northward expansion plans. One of the greatest benefits of Canada as a target of American commercial expansion is that the Canadian market shares so many things in common with the American market that not much needs to change in terms of marketing strategy or even product lines.
Besides potentially adding a French language option for Quebec, there are not that many major changes that need to be made and robo advisors can provide the same quality advise and plans to their new Canadian investment customers.
The main source of differences between the Canadian and American market would be the tax laws and financial regulations that govern the two jurisdictions. The main consequence of the differences in tax law as it pertains to investment plans is that the different tax rates might give the identical investment plan different outcomes based on how the investment returns are treated from a tax standpoint.
Robo advisors operating in both markets will need to include a geographical option of some sort that differentiates an investment plan affected by American taxes and ones that are affected by Canadian taxes.
Another thing almost unique to the North American market investment apps also need to factor into their recommendations is the reality of differences in state or provincial taxes on investments. These differences can be quite substantial from state to state.
Each state prioritizes different items for revenue generation, and they also have different overall revenue needs. As such, good robo advisors will have the option of choosing your country, as well as state or province, in order to produce as accurate a projection as possible for each of their customers.
The Benefits of Using a Machine
The benefits of having a robo advisor over a personal advisor and broker are manifold. One of the main benefits of having a robo advisor is the lowered fees that they bring. With a real person as a financial advisor, they understandably charge some sort of advisor fee, usually based on the account amount, because this is how they make their living.
With robo advisors, this is no longer in play. Indeed, some investment apps not only offer this service free of charge in exchange for advertisement space, but are even able to eliminate sales charges on for stock purchases. This is entirely due to the fact that their operating costs are a fraction of traditional financial services firms.
Another big benefit is the sheer convenience of it all. With traditional financial services, their offices would be usually open during office hours. With virtual wealth management apps, your account information and activity is all available quite literally at your fingertips at any time of your convenience. You are now able to look at your account in real time and make adjustments in real time, all from the comfort of your home. Given the long Canadian winter, this might come in quite handy.
