智能理財技術崛起對美國及台灣財富管理產業的衝擊

Abstract

近期的金融創新技術之所以令人矚目，主要是挾著創新科技與商業模式，針對金融產業當中目前利潤較高，但較無效率的部分，針對金融機構進行「去中介化」，破壞傳統金融業者的獲利結構。過去數年影響全球零售金融業的破壞式創新，例如第三方支付、小額借貸等，已在許多市場取得成功。預料金融科技業者下一個瞄準的目標在於投資理財事業。部分美國金融科技業者，結合數據科學以及投資專業知識，衍生而出智能理財技術，並針對中產階級中下緣的標的客戶，正在美國崛起並快速發展當中。當傳統財富管理業者仍以成本較高的方式，向有限的客戶族群提供諮詢服務時，便孕育了「理財機器人」的切入利基。智能理財業者注意到長尾端客戶的理財需求及痛點，提供客戶接觸面較廣，營運成本較低的服務，針對傳統商業模式無效率的部分施加攻擊，於是智能理財技術應運而生。 過去台灣的財富管理業者受到法令重重保護，加上台灣市場規模較小，整體社會氣氛對於創新的理解仍僅偏向產品創新，而非市場、消費者導向的創新，財管業者並不熱衷於創新。然而金融創新技術維生的商業模式在於對使用者提供拉力，進一步促使使用者跨越實體國境的限制使用其服務。台灣財管業者所面臨的競爭環境已今非昔比，海外的新進者隨時可以透過網路，挾著替代技術解構台灣財管業者在當地累積數十年所建立的基業。 本研究透過分析美國與台灣兩地財富管理市場的現狀，研究其創新動力的來源與創新技術擴散的過程，並透過五力分析了解採用金融創新技術前後，財富管理產業生態系可能的演變方式。最終歸納出五項研究發現，並藉此提供台灣政府與台灣財富管理業者建議，以因應智能理財技術快速崛起所帶來的衝擊。

The reason why financial technology has drawn such a big attention recently is that it intentionally disintermediates traditional financial institutions from their profitable but inefficient business, and consequently jeopardizes their profit model. Examples of the disruptive innovation in retail banking sector, including 3rd party payment and peer to peer lending, have been successfully gained traction in multiple markets. It is widely expected that the next target for Fintech firms will be on investment/wealth management sector. Some of Fintech firms in the U.S., by combining data science and investment management knowledge, have rolled out “Robo Advisor”, which quickly penetrates into its target audience, the mid and lower band of the middle class. Traditional wealth managers run their business in an expensive manner and their clientele is relatively limited. Robo advisors, who mitigate unmet needs and a pain point among the long tail end of clientele, offers a service model which is able to be in touch with clients more broadly with a lower cost. Few reasons drove wealth managers in Taiwan from embracing innovation in the past. First, Taiwanese wealth managers were protected by complicated ordinances from new entrants. Second, the size of Taiwanese wealth management market is relative small. Besides, there is a misperception about innovation, which was solely focusing on product innovation, rather than the innovation of consumer segments and business model. However, Fintech now is pulling and tempting clients all over the world crossover the physical boundary, to lever its services and products. Wealth managers in Taiwan now are facing unprecedented competition, the new entrants could destruct current business model through internet eventually. The thesis is to compare the wealth management industry in the U.S. and Taiwan, differentiate the factors of their innovation drivers, identify the current phases of their innovation diffusion, and attempt to model the evolution of wealth management ecological system by performing Porter’s five-force analysis. At the end, the thesis concludes five findings and derives few implications to Taiwanese government and the players in the local wealth management industry when both of them face to the impact of the rise of robo advisor.