WHEN I first heard the term robo-adviser, I thought it might be a variation on the iconic Paul Verhoeven film RoboCop. I had visions of financial advisers dressed in armour using catchphrases from the movie such as "Serve the public trust", "Protect the innocent", "Uphold the law" or "You’re in big trouble". I had visions of advisers clunking around in body armour, and I suspect most would have looked more like the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz than the great Peter Weller, who made the original RoboCop such a cult classic.A robo-adviser, in fact, isn’t nearly as much fun. Quite how it got this pretentious name, I am not sure. As Lance Solms, who runs the iTransact investment platform, says, it is neither robo nor adviser. He prefers the more retro name of investment calculator. In essence, the robo-adviser is not much of a step from the risk analysis questionnaires that have been around for years. Most of us have answered one of these: Do you sky dive? If so, you are likely to be stee...
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