Can a financial advisor be replaced by computer-based services? “Yes,” says Matthew Mc-Grath, formerly a senior executive with RBC Dominion Securities Inc., who is behind Toronto-based Optimize Inc., which is launching a new web-based advice and investment service that promises thousands in fee-related savings to Internet-savvy consumers.

The website, www.optimize.ca, will offer investors four distinct services, which will be rolled out over time. In its current, introductory form, the site allows visitors to identify and purchase mutual funds and other financial products that boast better performance and Lipper ratings, as well as lower fees, than the funds that they might already hold.

In the next few months, the website’s backers plan to offer an online financial planning platform, a portfolio analysis and monitoring platform and an aggregated banking view system that will consolidate and display an investor’s up-to-date financial status — even if he or she has accounts and investments with several financial institutions. (A U.S.-based sister site has been launched as www.optimize.com.)

Free of charge to site visitors, optimize.ca will be financially supported by online advertisers and will not charge trailer fees or other commissions. If an online visitor searches and invests in a particular security from the site, Optimize will receive a small click-through fee from the investment’s sponsor.

The online service will particularly appeal to younger investors, who may not have the assets that the baby boomers control today but who are comfortable moving money around online, McGrath says: “If you look at Generation X [and], certainly, Generation Y, this is a very tech-savvy group of individuals.”

Many of these younger Cana-dians either have not started saving for retirement or have not yet established a relationship with an investment advisor or financial planner. “If you speak with a financial advi-sor now and you are a Gen Xer with $50,000 or $75,000,” McGrath says, “you are not going to garner much play or much interest from one of the more reputable firms.”

Traditional financial advi-sors counter that they bring true value to the client/advisor relationship. For example, an ongoing study conducted by the Toronto-based Financial Planning Standards Council has shown that investors do better at creating and sticking to a financial plan while working with an advisor than when they try to do it themselves. A key finding of the study of more than 7,000 Canadians was that 61% of those individuals who were part of a “comprehensive, integrated financial planning” process felt confident that they will be satisfied with their financial situation in retirement, vs 27% with no financial planning and 46% who had obtained only limited advice.

“Our study really demonstrates that those people who engage in comprehensive financial planning with an advisor are far better off,” says FPSC vice president Tamara Smith. “They are more confident in their ability to save for the future. They certainly have more peace of mind… they are better savers, on average. They feel more prepared to weather economic uncertainty.@page_break@“The benefits that our survey revealed were based on people with a relationship with a financial advisor engaged in comprehensive planning,” she adds. “It is a complex process, and I’m not sure that a software program would be able to replicate that.”

McGrath’s company, which has been working on the rollout of optimize.ca for two years, is now working at landing the private financing it requires to market the online financial service with an advertising campaign next year.

Judging by the company’s initial press release, the tone of that marketing campaign will largely be hammering the investment industry for its fees. (His firm claims that investors using its services will be able to save up to 80% in financial fees.)

“Canadians are paying thousands of dollars each year in unnecessary investing and banking fees,” McGrath says, “which optimize.ca plans to expose and eliminate.”

“I think this is an extremely important concept that [McGrath] is building,” says Som Seif, president and CEO of Toronto-based exchange-traded fund firm Claymore Investments Inc. “The future of any business is going to be around transparency, and I think this [website] gives a better transparent view.”

Seif can envision consumers using optimize.ca to research and identify particular mutual funds, up to and including “all in” financial planning, but he does not believe that the site will replace the work a quality financial advisor currently does for consumers: “I think good advisors are already doing this type of thing for their clients. But I believe what this [website] does is it replaces the bad advisors. It really kind of puts a light on the guys that are doing things well and the ones that are doing things poorly.”

Seif notes that there already are some websites, such as Morningstar Can-ada’s, investors can use to take greater control over their financial affairs. “But it is just not as simple as what Optimize is trying to do,” he says. “It is really bringing [comparisons] to a simple, clean, single solution for clients to go and look at.”

The first of the website’s four offerings, dubbed Instant Savings, will allow investors to search out low-cost mutual funds and guaranteed investment certificates, as well search out the best rates for bank accounts and credit cards.

Next to come will be an online financial planner platform that will allow consumers to create a retirement plan, an education savings plan and savings plans.

“In my time at DS, I must have done 2,000 financial plans,” says McGrath. “Those very same questions are in this program that we have developed. And, so, after answering this series of questions… we show [the website’s visitors] in a very clear manner how much they need to be saving.”

What sets the platform apart, he adds, is that investors can sync their investment accounts with various firms on one “dashboard” screen and get updated information in real time as often as they wish.

Investors also will be able to set up multiple retirement scenarios and set up alerts to tell them if they are ahead or behind schedule. “That is something that is not available right now,” McGrath says, “and I know for a financial advisor to offer that service is just impossible.”

The third feature to launch will be the online portfolio analysis and monitoring platform. Last to launch will be the website’s aggregated banking view service (similar to U.S.-based www.mint.com). IE