Value considerations, ethical dilemmas, and resolving methods in automated financial advice: Qualitative study among industry experts

Financial advice can benefit consumers by guiding them in navigating the complexities of financial decision-making. At the moment, financial advice is mainly
provided in traditional ways. However, automated financial advice is an upcoming
and fast-growing technology that can change the way financial advice is provided.
Its complex nature introduces several ethical and other issues. This research paper
employs a qualitative research approach to investigate to what extent automated
financial advice can create value for consumers and the financial advice industry,
identifies ethical issues of automated financial advice, and explores potential
methods for resolving ethical issues. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with
nine experts. The results indicate that automated financial advice can provide value
through improved accessibility, reduced costs, and increased objectivity. Complexity
may influence value creation through lower accessibility and higher costs (see Table
3). Moreover, the research identifies five relevant ethical issues: human autonomy,
prevention of harm, fairness, explicability, and trust (see Table 4). Potential methods
to address ethical issues point to the need of legislation tailored to automated
financial advice, changes in organizational governance, and improved algorithmic
capabilities (see Table 5). Practical implications include the immediate development
of rules and regulations tailored to automated financial advice, which incorporate
ethical aspects.