Open Platforms—Technology Accelerating Realignment in Capital Markets
For market participants, 2020–2021 was a target year and a milestone for completing and revamping technology strategies and looking to the coming decade. Financial institutions are moving to implement the next leg of the roadmap on their transformation journey, with a view to the next 10 years. Mounting uncertainty makes forecasting for the future more challenging than ever, but two things are certain. First, market players will continue to operate in an increasingly complex and opaque market, regulatory environment, and business environment as they strive to steadily generate transactions and revenue. The second certainty is that in capital markets, as in other industries, technology will become even more central as new technologies proliferate, enticing new market players into the arena and dramatically transforming the market landscape.
Already, many market players have begun to explore new models as they plan for the unknown—a new market of which only the vaguest outlines are apparent. This is a reflection of the strong interest and various perspectives that cutting-edge financial institutions have regarding open platforms. In short, the shift to next-generation models could happen quite suddenly. At the same time, financial institutions are typically risk-averse and generally slow to lead but fast to follow when it comes to adopting new models that have proven effective. Technological flexibility, however, will in part impact how this "follow the market leader" dynamic plays out. More progressive market players will, from the perspective of avoiding risk, adopt cloud and API solutions, heightening IT agility and accelerating the speed of this "chase." Presumably, in the heightened uncertain of today's world, this will become the "new normal."