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Some of Toronto-based Royal Bank of Canada’s clients are getting a chance to test drive the bank’s robo-advisor platform, RBC InvestEase,

On Jan. 16, the bank launched a pilot project for a select group of clients in Ontario to test out its new online wealth management platform.

The bank initially began testing RBC InvestEase in November 2017 through a small pilot project involving employees in the same province.

RBC readies to launch robo-advisor platform

Participating clients will be able to open an RBC InvestEase account with an initial investment of $1,000. The platform can support non-registered investment accounts, RRSPs and TFSAs.

RBC InvestEase portfolios will consist of index ETFs developed by RBC Global Asset Management. The ETFs held in the portfolios will have a weighted average management expense ratio of between 0.12% to 0.14%.

The platform has a management fee of 0.5%, plus HST. However, participants in the client pilot project will have that fee waived for a minimum of six months from the time of account opening. RBC InvestEase says it will notify its clients 60 days in advance of making any changes to management fees associated with their accounts.