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Introduction
The build-up of virtual services (Vilnai-Yavetz and Rafaeli, 2006) is no longer the speculative fodder of prognosticators and futurists (Syed et al., 2020). Artificial intelligence (AI)-enhanced robotic process automation (Cooper et al., 2019) and disembodied or automated knowledge platforms (Willcocks and Lacity, 2016) are now part of the development and delivery of professional advice in financial service firms (Haddad and Hornuf, 2019). Presently, robo-advisors (RAs) are entering and working with clients otherwise serviced by highly paid professional financial advisors or brokers in banking, investment houses, insurance agencies and the wealth management firms (Woodyard and Grable, 2018). Virtual or online recommender systems (Bobadilla et al., 2013) thrive where choice is plentiful and information or advice is sought by pay for service clientele to make informed decisions (Barrett et al., 2015). RAs occupy a financial service space in FinTech, the marriage of financial services with technology (Sironi, 2016), mainly information technology (Lee and Shin, 2018), in a competitive fee-based knowledge industry. While FinTech dates back to the use of the telegraph and ticker tape (Alt et al., 2018), recent advances in AI (Belanche et al., 2019), blockchain (Lee and Lee, 2018), big data (Campbell-Verduyn et al., 2017) and information-based, robotic process automation (RPA) (Van der Aalst et al., 2018), make growth in this portion of the industry not only the largest but the most impactful (Nicoletti et al., 2017).
Financial industry analysts note that while the global FinTech market was worth $127.66bn (US) in 2018, projections have it that by 2022 it is likely to it is projected to reach $309.98bn (Ketabachi, 2020). Within FinTech, the global RAs' market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 53.4% which, if industry analysts (Market Data Forecast, 2020) are correct, will translate into a revenue of $97.03bn (US) by 2025. RAs jumped into the market during the 2008 global financial crisis (Arner et al., 2015). Beleaguered commercial service firms interested in distancing themselves from the reputational capital lost in the economic downturn and introducing cost-efficient technologies nurtured and embraced RAs (Lopez et al., 2015), among other FinTech options (Goldstein et al., 2019).
Rather than focusing upon transactions as the basis of the financial...