I have a younger colleague who started investing with Smartly and StashAway (Singapore robo-advisors) about the same time as my wife and I back in 2017. She invested a lump sum of about S$1,000 with each of them and didn’t contribute any further cash funds into her accounts.

To date, my colleague’s account returns are negative and she doesn’t understand why that’s the case. She’s now turned off investing with Singapore robo-advisors and recommends against them with our other colleagues.

I have another older colleague who heard about Smartly and StashAway but didn’t invest with these Singapore robo-advisors because she doesn’t understand them. In her own words, she prefers real estate such as residential property because she can see and touch it.

This is just within my department, which is a small sample size of the population in the bank that I work in. But it’s clear that there’s more