Robo advice is technology-driven investment guidance provided without a human financial adviser. It relies on automated algorithms to assess your goals and risk tolerance, then selects and manages a diversified portfolio—often using low-cost index funds or ETFs—with automated rebalancing and sometimes tax considerations. This description fits best because it captures the essence of automated, adviser-free guidance and the typical use of index funds or ETFs to build simple, low-cost portfolios. The other statements imply a human planner or discretionary management, or suggest it’s limited to high-net-worth clients, which do not describe robo advice accurately.

The Financial Policy Committee focuses on macro-prudential regulation to protect the stability and resilience of the financial system as a whole. Macro-prudential work looks at risks that can affect many institutions and markets at once—like a credit boom, liquidity stress, or complex interconnections between banks—and uses tools across the system (such as capital buffers and liquidity requirements) to dampen those risks. It operates at the level of the Bank of England and coordinates with the PRA and FCA, but it isn’t about regulating any single firm. In contrast, micro-prudential regulation targets individual institutions, while consumer protection and market conduct fall under the FCA. So the main scope is macro-prudential regulation to ensure systemic stability.

The FPC has two formal ways to influence the FCA and PRA: issuing directions and using binding mediation. Directions are binding orders the FPC can give to the FCA and PRA to require them to take, or refrain from, actions to address financial stability risks. If there’s a disagreement between the FPC and the regulators, binding mediation provides a mechanism to reach a decision that both must follow. Other options describe tools that the FPC does not have—recommendations aren’t binding, penalties are not a FPC instrument, and relying only on advisory notes would not exert mandatory influence. So the combination of directions and binding mediation best fits how the FPC can steer the regulators.

GDP, from the expenditure side, is the total spending on domestically produced final goods and services. It adds up consumer spending (C), business investment (I), government purchases (G), and net exports (exports minus imports, NX). The reason net exports appear is that spending on imports is on goods made abroad, so it doesn’t add to domestic production, while exports are produced domestically and do increase domestic output. Put together, the formula is GDP = C + I + G + (Exports − Imports). Depreciation is tied to a different measure: net domestic product (NDP) = GDP − depreciation. So GDP is the gross measure of production, not reduced by depreciation. While GDP can also be represented via the income approach, the standard “best-fit” formula in this context is the expenditure one that includes net exports.