BMO SmartFolio is a digital

investment management Investment management is the professional asset management of various securities, including shareholdings, bonds, and other assets, such as real estate, to meet specified investment goals for the benefit of investors. Investors may be institut ...

service offered by Canada’s

Bank of Montreal The Bank of Montreal (BMO; french: Banque de Montréal, link=no) is a Canadian multinational investment bank and financial services company. The bank was founded in Montreal, Quebec, in 1817 as Montreal Bank; while its head office remains in ...

. Broadly referred to as a

robo-advisor Robo-advisors or robo-advisers are a class of financial adviser that provide financial advice and investment management online with moderate to minimal human intervention. They provide digital financial advice based on mathematical rules or algorith ...

, the service allows investors to answer a series of questions

online In computer technology and telecommunications, online indicates a state of connectivity and offline indicates a disconnected state. In modern terminology, this usually refers to an Internet connection, but (especially when expressed "on line" or ...

about their investment goals, time horizon and

risk tolerance In economics and finance, risk aversion is the tendency of people to prefer outcomes with low uncertainty to those outcomes with high uncertainty, even if the average outcome of the latter is equal to or higher in monetary value than the more c ...

, then are recommended a model

portfolio Portfolio may refer to: Objects * Portfolio (briefcase), a type of briefcase Collections * Portfolio (finance), a collection of assets held by an institution or a private individual * Artist's portfolio, a sample of an artist's work or a ...

made up of

index Index (or its plural form indices) may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional entities * Index (''A Certain Magical Index''), a character in the light novel series ''A Certain Magical Index'' * The Index, an item on a Halo megastru ...

-tracking

exchange-traded funds An exchange-traded fund (ETF) is a type of investment fund and exchange-traded product, i.e. they are traded on stock exchanges. ETFs are similar in many ways to mutual funds, except that ETFs are bought and sold from other owners throughout the ...

based on the investor’s profile, managed by financial professionals with BMO Global Asset Management and BMO Nesbitt Burns. Launched to the public on January 18, 2016 by the bank's full-service investment firm,

BMO Nesbitt Burns The Bank of Montreal (BMO; french: Banque de Montréal, link=no) is a Canadian multinational Investment banking, investment bank and financial services company. The bank was founded in Montreal, Quebec, in 1817 as Montreal Bank; while its hea ...

, it was the first digital portfolio management service offered by a big five Canadian bank. BMO SmartFolio was developed in-house to appeal to the growing number of investors looking for investment management alternatives to traditional

brokerages A stockbroker is a regulated broker, broker-dealer, or registered investment adviser (in the United States) who may provide financial advisory and investment management services and execute transactions such as the purchase or sale of stocks and ...

. As of December 18, 2017, the minimum amount required to open a BMO SmartFolio account is $1,000, reduced from the $5,000 minimum amount set when the service was originally launched. Account fees are calculated at 0.7 per cent for the first $100,000 invested then are reduced as the account size increases, to 0.4 per cent on assets over $500,000. The service offers clients the option of holding their investment in

TFSA A tax-free savings account (TFSA, french: links=no, Compte d'épargne libre d'impôt, CELI) is an account available in Canada that provides tax benefits for saving. Investment income, including capital gains and dividends, earned in a TFSA is ...

(Tax-Free Savings Account), RRSP (Registered Retirement Savings Plan),

RESP A registered education savings plan (RESP) in Canada is an investment vehicle available to caregivers to save for their children's post-secondary education. The principal advantages of RESPs are the access they provide to the Canada Education Savi ...

(Registered Education Savings Account), RRIF (Registered Retirement Income Fund), as well as non-registered and

joint A joint or articulation (or articular surface) is the connection made between bones, ossicles, or other hard structures in the body which link an animal's skeletal system into a functional whole.Saladin, Ken. Anatomy & Physiology. 7th ed. McGraw ...

investment accounts.

Investment industry disruption

Following the

financial crisis of 2007-2008 Finance is the study and discipline of money, currency and capital assets. It is related to, but not synonymous with economics, the study of production, distribution, and consumption of money, assets, goods and services (the discipline of finan ...

, new

financial technology Fintech, a portmanteau of "financial technology", refers to firms using new technology to compete with traditional financial methods in the delivery of financial services. Artificial intelligence, blockchain, cloud computing, and big data are ...

startups A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an Entrepreneurship, entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship refers to all new businesses, including self-employment and businesses t ...

began offering digital investment management services, or

s, to meet consumer demands for technology-based solutions to lower the costs of investing. While these online

services are most common in the United States, a number are available in Canada, Europe, Australia, India and Asia. While similar to a robo-advisor service, where investors sign-up online and have digital access to their investment holdings and performance tracking, BMO SmartFolio differs from its peers in the U.S. and UK, in that the portfolios are monitored and managed by a portfolio management group, as opposed to a computer algorithm.

References

External links

BMO SmartFolio website
Bank of Montreal Financial technology Financial services in Canada {{investment-stub