Prioritising the Challenges in Adoption of Robo-Advisors: A Case Analysis from Emerging Economy Context

Robo-advisors are gaining utmost attention in the present market landscape. They are highly helpful in providing cost-effective and valuable solutions. Despite this, adopting robo-advisors is subject to various complexities. Therefore, this research analysed the challenges of adopting robo-advisors in an emerging economy context. Overall, 17 barriers of robo-advisors were explored and further confirmed with experts. The fuzzy-DEMATEL technique was applied to establish a causal relationship among the identified challenges. From the results, it is found that factors such as limited customisation for complex needs (A1), security and data privacy concerns (A2) and limited understanding of emotional factors (A3) are the main causal factors. The key effect categories challenges include deficiency of trust (A6), lack of user-friendly interfaces (A4), data quality and integration issues (A17) and high initial investment (A9). The research results are highly useful for managers, practitioners and researchers. Robo-advisors can revolutionise the whole market landscape, resulting in better decision-making. This study is the first of its kind, and it analysed and prioritised challenges for adopting robo-advisors. Moreover, this study established a dyadic relationship among the difficulties identified.