Robo Advisors at the Regulatory Crossroads Workshop

Silverman Hall, Room 240A

Co-sponsored by The Warren Center

April 13, 2018

10:00 AM - 3:45 PM

Co-sponsored by the Center for Technology, Innovation and Competition, the Penn Wharton Public Policy Initiative at the University of Pennsylvania, the Institute of International Economic Law at Georgetown University Law Center, and the Warren Center for Network & Data Sciences.

Increasingly, consumer financial advice comes from automated systems that employ large data sets, advanced algorithms, and automated interfaces. Typically, these “robo advisors” work behind the scenes for human intermediaries.  But fully automated systems are gaining traction in wealth management and insurance services, and the rise of automated personal financial services may pave the way for fully automated systems in consumer credit.  Whether they work directly or indirectly with consumers, robo advisers present opportunities and challenges to financial services markets and regulators that have yet to be systematically addressed.  The opportunities include lower cost, higher quality financial advice and a digital feedback loop that increases the efficiency of financial markets and consumer financial security.  The challenges include manipulation and misunderstanding of automated advice, the potential for further consolidation of the financial sector, and the threats to privacy and security that accompany digitalization more broadly.

This workshop starts from the proposition that insights from multiple domains will be needed to address these questions successfully:  IT practice, financial services regulation, the financial services industry, behavioral sciences, computer and data sciences, and law.  The workshop will bring together representatives from these diverse backgrounds to explore best practices and potential regulatory principles for automated financial advice.  The goals of the workshop are to further the development of a common vocabulary and understanding across domains, to inform the public and private sector participants about research that has the potential to impact their work, and to identify opportunities for research on automated advisor technology to provide consumer guidance (information technology domain), on consumers’ responses to this technology (behavioral science domain), and on regulatory principles to support better financial decisions with automated financial advice (legal domain).

 

10:00 am- Roboadvising:  Operational Forms and Strategies

Dan Egan, Director of Behavioral Finance and Investments, Betterment

Sam Kina, Senior Vice President of Economics and Data Science, Picwell

Justin Williams, Vice President, BlackRock, and Legal & Compliance Counsel, FutureAdvisor

 

11:00 am- The State of Play in Artificial Intelligence

Michael Kearns, National Chair, University of Pennsylvania Computer and Information Science Department

Solon Barocas, Assistant Professor for the Department of Information Science, Cornell University

 

11:45 am-  Roboadvising and the Consumer

Berkeley J. Dietvorst, Assistant Professor of Marketing, Chicago Booth School of Business

Benedict Dellaert, Professor of Marketing, Erasmus University

Mary Steffel, Assistant Professor of Marketing, Northeastern University

Sunita Sah, Assistant Professor of Management and Organizations, SC Johnson College of Business at Cornell University

 

12:45 pm- Lunch and Keynote: Amias Gerety, QED Investors, former Assistant Secretary, US Treasury

 

1:45 pm- Regulators and Roboadvising: Strategies, Agreement and Dissensus

Steve Polansky, Senior Director, Regulatory Operations, FINRA

Wei Zhang, Credit Cards Program Manager, CFPB

Rochelle Kauffmann Plesset, Senior Counsel, SEC Div. of Investment Management

Barbara Richardson, NV Insurance Commissioner and Chair, NAIC Producer Licensing Working Group

 

2:45 pm- The Future of Roboadvising:  Trends, risks and opportunities

Sevin Yeltekin, Professor of Economics and Senior Associate Dean of Education, Carnegie Mellon University

Chris Brummer, Research Professor and Faculty Director of the Institute of International Economic Law, Georgetown University

Tom Baker, Professor of Law and Health Sciences, University of Pennsylvania Law School

Workshop site

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