{"id":8131,"date":"2016-03-15T17:08:38","date_gmt":"2016-03-15T17:08:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=8131"},"modified":"2016-03-15T17:08:38","modified_gmt":"2016-03-15T17:08:38","slug":"rise-of-the-robo-bankers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=8131","title":{"rendered":"Rise of the robo-bankers?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Investment advisers at the 73 per cent taxpayer-owned RBS bank are set to be replaced by so-called \u00e2\u20ac\u015brobo advisers\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 to cut costs, which will entail the loss of 250 jobs.<\/p>\n

 
\nThe bank, which received a bailout to the tune of \u00c2\u014145bn during the financial crisis, is moving to automate advice for customers who have less than \u00c2\u0141250,000 to invest — a drastic increase from its previous \u00c2\u0141100,000 threshold.<\/p>\n

 
\nRBS has said that new legislation introduced in 2013 has made it unprofitable for the bank to advise customers with less money to invest.<\/p>\n

 
\nThe bank will also shed another 220 jobs as it replaces face-to-face advice on protection, such as insurance, with a telephone-only operation.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe are scaling back our face-to-face advisers and significantly investing in an online investing platform that enables us to help a new group of customers with as little as \u00c2\u0141500 to invest,” an RBS spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

 
\nWhile many media outlets deemed the new online investment advice platform \u00e2\u20ac\u015brobo advisers\u00e2\u20ac\u0165, RBS clarified<\/a>, noting that what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s replacing face-to-face advisers uses no artificial intelligence or machine learning and is not robotic at all.<\/p>\n

 
\nThe automated system is instead only a series of online forms and questionnaires.<\/p>\n

 
\nUnite questioned RBS\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 argument that it latest decision to automate services was motivated by a desire to make its investment advice more affordable.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWhat we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re seeing is a two-tier advice service,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 said Unite national officer for finance Rob MacGregor. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bMost customers will now only get online or telephone advice, unless you happen to have in excess of \u00c2\u0141250,000 to invest, in which case \u00e2\u20ac\u0098Wealth Manager\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 roles have been created to offer a face-to-face service.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bRather than making advice more affordable, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re making it more exclusive,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he noted.<\/p>\n

 
\nMacGregor highlighted that banks that are pushing to automate many of its services are driven more by ruthless cost-cutting than by any desire to improve its customer experience.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWhen it comes to machines vs. people, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s undoubtedly the case that dealing with online forms and automated voices is far more frustrating for customers,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he explained. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe spate of recent IT glitches across the banks, including RBS, shows how fallible this service would be.<\/p>\n

 
\nUnite also believes that, as a publically-owned bank, RBS\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 withdrawing from public view \u00e2\u20ac\u201c for example, by its mass closure of bank branches in addition to slashing frontline staff \u00e2\u20ac\u201c undermines the public goodwill the bank relies on to operate.<\/p>\n

 
\nThe importance of maintaining a \u00e2\u20ac\u0098social license\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 between banks and their customers is a point that the Bank of England has also made.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bEnding face-to-face services cuts yet another vital human connection between the public and the bank, which is the last thing RBS should be doing when they so desperately need to clean up their tarnished image,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 MacGregor noted.<\/p>\n

 
\nThe news that RBS would automate services after slashing investment adviser roles comes against a backdrop of continued scandal.<\/p>\n

 
\nThe bank reported its eighth consecutive year of full-year losses<\/a>, amounting to \u00c2\u01412.5bn in 2015 — \u00c2\u0141500m of this was set aside for its massive PPI compensation bill with another \u00c2\u01412bn being put towards other legal bills.<\/p>\n

 
\nDespite continued profit losses and thousands of job losses, just last week<\/a> it was reported that RBS would give its top management team future bonuses in shares worth \u00c2\u014117.4m.<\/p>\n

 
\nA review of banks\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 published complaints data<\/a> found that RBS received the highest proportion of complaints out of all the major banks, racking up four complaints for every 1,000 customers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Investment advisers at the 73 per cent taxpayer-owned RBS bank are set to be replaced by so-called \u00e2\u20ac\u015brobo advisers\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 to cut costs, which will entail the loss of 250 jobs.   The bank, which received a bailout to the tune of \u00c2\u014145bn during the financial crisis, is moving to automate advice for customers who have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8132,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[32,292,123],"wps_subtitle":"Cyber advisers replace people at RBS ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8131"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8131"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8131\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8135,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8131\/revisions\/8135"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}