Securities & Investments Newsletter: April 2018

Travels with Data
I have been traveling recently across Asia and Europe to see clients and prospects. What has struck me is that the major technology themes in our Securities industry are continuing: the importance of digital transformation, the appeal and success of (some) disruptive business models enabled by technology, and the transformation of technology ecosystems driven by both regulatory forces and the desire to get a better handle on data and overall IT architecture.

At the same time, these transformations are all highly nuanced. Details matter. Regulations matter. People and process matter. Not everything needs to be digitized today. Some technology systems, archaic as they may be, work just fine. The exception is data, which does not really seem to work all that well anywhere.

In speaking to you, I have been struck by the universal degree by which data (client, trade, investment, market, emerging/alternative/internal, other) has become both an enabler and a hindrance to successful securities operations and IT.

On a recent jog in London, I was listening to a podcast of the philosopher Alan Watts who said that data, or how we describe the world, is almost completely unrecognizable from the world as it actually is. And sometimes, that’s the way I feel about data in our industry--- it can often be unrecognizable from the markets we operate in on a daily basis.

Data in the Future
Fortunately, we are seeing new data sets emerge, new ways to leverage data, an emphasis on complete data sets, and the deployment of emerging technologies to make data sets come alive through analytics. Will these practices be able to help us describe our clients, the markets, and the world more accurately over time? We think so.

We need only look at recent Celent reports:

• Neil Katkov spoke to the use of data in establishing a centralized customer risk profile and a holistic view of AML… Read More»

• Arin Ray says there is a heavy focus on data and analytics and leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning for enhancing the effectiveness of surveillance solutions… Read More»

• John Dwyer recently focused on the substantive implications of research unbundling under MiFID 2 as new data assets emerge which have the potential to objectify the entire investment process… Read More»

• Brad Bailey has been discussing how data preparation, storage, treatment, usage, and distribution will become of growing importance in capital markets… Read More»

• Will Trout has outlined the universal desire among advisors to spend more time in front of their clients and the potential for data marts to achieve an enterprise view of the customer… Read More»

• Kelley Byrnes also asserts that wealth managers are taking note of trends in banking to see how banks opening up customer data could impact their operations and value proposition… Read More»

• Ashley Globerman talks about how data is one important component of a good digital client experience and can support customizable client journeys… Read More»

Please see below some of our most recent reports on the topics across the Securities practice. Thank you.

David Easthope
Senior Vice President
@deasthope