Cerulli sees 2,500 percent jump in robo assets in next 5 years

It’s no secret that robo-advisors have been adding assets under management at a brisk pace. Betterment on Wednesday reported that its assets tripled during the first ten months of this year to $3 billion. But that 200 percent growth rate is piddling compared to what Cerulli Associates is projecting for the entire robo-advisor industry.  In a report released Wednesday the research firm projected a 2,500 percent jump in robo assets by 2020, to $489 billion.

“The compelling value proposition of digital advice providers (or robo-advisors), who offer low-minimum, low-cost portfolios, coupled with consumers’ expanding interest in passive investing will fuel this growth,” said Tom O’Shea, associate director at Cerulli, in a press release.

Cerulli expects that the growth of robo-advisor assets will be broad-based, coming not just from robo-only advisors and large retail firms like Schwab that currently offer digital advisory services but from other retail firms as well as traditional advisory firms.

“We anticipate that most, if not all, retail direct firms will have a digital advice offering within the next three years, and traditional advisors will also launch digital offering for lower-balance investor accounts,” said O’Shea.  But he noted that “large retail direct firms will be one of the major drivers of growth for digital advice.”