KBC introduces smart investment assistant Matti

With assistance from Matti, investors can find it convenient to invest in stock exchange through Bolero platform

Belgian bank KBC has introduced a new digital robotised investment assistant Matti that offers automatic monitoring of investment portfolios of clients.

The smart assistant is available for both KBC and Bolero clients and for non-customers, with a minimum of €1,000 investment.

Based on the profile and preferences of an investor, Matti will propose a portfolio and will also continuously monitor the investor’s portfolio. With the assistant, the investor will receive an alert with an optimised portfolio proposal. It is up to the investor, whether or not to follow Matti’s advice.

Algorithm supporting Matti is based on Nobel laureate Harry Markowitz’s Modern Portfolio Theory

The algorithm supporting Matti was developed by KBC and is based on Nobel laureate Harry Markowitz’s Modern Portfolio Theory. The algorithm was already developed and tested in 2017.

Claimed to rely on historical market data, the algorithm does not take into account economic, monetary or political forecasts. To create a portfolio, Matti selected from a list of nearly 50 Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) from independent issuers such as iShares and UBS.

By taking the portfolio profile and preferences into account, Matti automatically generates a personalised tracker portfolio. The bot’s target is to include at least 7 different trackers.

With continuous tracking from Matti, an investor can see how his or her portfolio has spread over equity ETFs, bond ETFs and cash. Additionally, the user can also get an understanding of the yield provided by the portfolio in a positive, neutral and a negative market scenario.

Before the signup, a user will have to go through a 15-minute questionnaire for the system to assess the financial situation, investment objectives, appetite for risk and return and his knowledge on ETFs. Anyone who is insufficiently familiar with investing is not eligible for Matti’s services, the bank said.

Bolero CEO Werner Eetezonne said: “At Bolero, we constantly strive to make the life of the self-directed investor as easy as possible by offering a lot of stock market information and easy to use tools.

“Nevertheless, we notice that some investors find it still too difficult to make their own choice out of the many stock market products available and are especially worried of making the wrong choice.

“Moreover, anyone who is involved with shares has to keep a close eye at all times. In order to offer an easy solution for those investors as well, we at Bolero, decided to use the technology and develop a smart investment assistant. Investors who are reluctant to make their own choice from the wide range of listed instruments or who simply do not have the time to follow up their portfolio themselves can use Matti.

“Investors who are reluctant to make their own choice from the wide range of listed instruments or who do not have the time to follow up their portfolio themselves can now use Matti. A new and strategic step for Bolero to bring the stock market even closer to every investor.”