Book Review: The Technological Revolution in Financial Services

The Technological Revolution in Financial Services: How Banks, Financial Firms, and Customers Win Together. 2020. Edited by Michael R. King, CFA, and Richard W. Nesbitt. University of Toronto Press.

The Technological Revolution in Monetary Companies: How Banks, Monetary Companies, and Clients Win CollectivelyEdited by Michael R. King, CFALansdowne Chair in Finance on the College of Victoria’s Gustafson College of Enterprise, W Richard W. Nesbittassistant professor and government director in residence on the Rotman College of Administration on the College of Toronto, is a useful useful resource for practitioners searching for a extra complete understanding of the evolving monetary trade.

Change is a continuing theme in banking and monetary providers. This guide summarizes the strategic implications for monetary providers corporations in North America, Europe, and different developed economies. The editors contend that conventional banks, asset managers, and insurance coverage corporations (ie, the incumbents) will proceed to dominate monetary providers. Nevertheless, essentially the most profitable incumbents will accomplice with fintech corporations to offer higher and extra revolutionary providers to retail and small enterprise prospects at a decrease value. This technological revolution will profit prospects and result in a extra open and inclusive monetary system.

The guide supplies a roadmap for the way the monetary trade has developed in response to a few structural forces driving the transformation of monetary providers globally:

1. Tightening regulation within the aftermath of the worldwide monetary disaster (GFC).
2. Innovation fueled by new applied sciences, together with fintech 3.0 (starting in 2009), as startups and new entrants convey monetary services on to retail and company prospects.
3. Demographic modifications, together with the profession development of millennials and the retirement of child boomers.

For my part, one sudden consequence of the worldwide monetary middle’s regulatory responses has been that it has facilitated a wave of innovation and technological disruption, each inside and out of doors the monetary trade. Nationwide rules, such because the US Dodd-Frank Act (2010) and the UK Banking Reform Act (2013), have made the monetary sector safer and extra steady than it was. Nevertheless, these regulatory reforms have made the monetary sector much less worthwhile, much less liquid and extra fragmented. Competitors from shadow banking and different unregulated gamers intensified.

The preliminary supply of turmoil was trade insiders who left established corporations to launch entrepreneurial start-ups that drained the trade’s revenue swimming pools. As well as, in line with contributor Tiff Macklem, present dean of the Rotman College of Administration on the College of Toronto, the GFC and its fallout have compelled enterprise colleges and bankers to develop their monetary educating. This growth features a renewed concentrate on tradition and ethics in addition to consideration for “non-financial” dangers, akin to these from worker conduct, technological disruption, and local weather change. Market individuals, together with boards and regulators, have gotten conscious of the significance of tradition in creating social norms that affect what folks do when nobody is watching. As an adjunct affiliate professor of finance at NYU’s Stern College of Enterprise, I really feel strongly that universities can even supply extra simulation-based, experiential studying whereas shifting curricula past conventional finance subjects to danger administration.

MacLeam describes two huge forces affecting the financial system, finance and society – technological disruption and local weather change. New applied sciences, together with synthetic intelligence and blockchain, are creating new alternatives, however there should even be methods to commercialize improvements and supply startups with the enterprise judgment wanted to succeed. A profitable instance is Rotman’s Artistic Destruction Lab, which helps science-based tasks within the seed stage increase capital, scale their enterprise and clear up market failures for enterprise judgment.

As a passionate advocate for addressing the dangers of local weather change, I agree with MacLeam on the necessity for sustainable finance to transcend its area of interest in monetary markets and into the mainstream. This shift is important as a result of excessive climate occasions related to local weather change result in extra frequent excessive losses. The monetary sector performs a crucial position in channeling financial savings into extra sustainable investments and serving to households and companies handle new climate-related dangers.

The ultimate part of the guide outlines the actions that senior leaders within the monetary sector should take to achieve the FinTech area. One such measure is enhancing gender range. Based on Brenda Trenoden, CFA, former international head of 30% clubThe feasibility examine for gender steadiness is not only a social problem but additionally a efficiency problem. It summarizes a big physique of analysis linking elevated gender range to improved monetary efficiency, as measured by accounting metrics and market returns.

In addition to itemizing the monetary advantages, Trenowden explains how gender range improves expertise attraction and retention, innovation, productiveness, and buyer engagement. She then recognized six concrete actions senior leaders can take to extend gender range of their organizations:

1. Acknowledge and take care of hidden biases.
2. Diagnose the issue and set measurable objectives.
3. Present gender-neutral job descriptions.
4. Altering hiring practices.
5. Match girls with prime sponsors.
6. Offering a feminine position mannequin.

As an worker of an organization the place 70% of the workforce is both feminine or a minority, I totally agree with Trenoden’s view on the significance of gender range, as evidenced by improved monetary efficiency.

Briefly, this guide will assist information each incumbents and newcomers within the subsequent decade because the monetary trade strives to place the client first. The longer-term impression of the technological revolution in banking providers can be an enchancment in buyer expertise. Profitable monetary intermediaries within the subsequent decade will concentrate on the wants of shoppers, understanding that the trade exists to serve them first.

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All posts are the opinion of the writer. As such, it shouldn’t be construed as funding recommendation, nor do the opinions expressed essentially mirror the views of the CFA Institute or the writer’s employer.

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