Innovation to determine winners and losers in financial sector

• Companies must address difficulties in acquiring quality data from inconsistent data sources
• Those that best understand and address these challenges can turn them into new opportunities

THERE will be little respite for CTOs and CIOs (chief technology and information officers) in the new year, in the competitive race to better manage the complexity of the data supply chain.
 
That struggle is nowhere more poignant or urgent than in the financial services industry. The year 2013 demonstrated the financial sector was dangerously lagging in innovating to address data management challenges.
 
Last year, the global technology economy exceeded US$4.8 trillion and accounted for 6% of the world’s GDP (gross domestic product), according to IDC. Data volumes grew by 40% while IT spending grew by only 5%, McKinsey reported.
 
In 2014, financial services companies are expected to spend more than US$430 billion on technology.  Bloomberg’s research shows our customers (representing a wide swathe of the financial services space) will assign on average, almost 7% of their revenues and 8.5% of their operating expenditure to IT.
 
Managing complex data and its inherent risks is driving innovation that must be both rapid and decisive to keep a-pace with changes in the financial services sector. But there is clearly a disparity between the scale and urgency of the data management challenges and the industry’s response.
 
Events that began in 2008 – the mortgage meltdown, subsequent credit freeze and economic recession – mean today’s financial markets ecosystem is being redesigned. Lower and erratic trading volumes, shrinking spreads and commissions and evolving regulatory oversight – which at once is seeking consistency but is becoming more fragmented across markets – are transformative. Only the most nimble, innovative and efficient will prosper.
 
Financial services companies are now expected to provide greater transparency, more extensive compliance measures, tighter management of risk and faster responses to new regulations – simultaneously and across multiple regions and regulatory regimes.
 
What’s more, to stay competitive, CTOs and CIOs are being told to do more with less; to cut cost and minimise total cost of ownership; to improve ROI (return on investment) and maximise existing technology spend, while improving business performance – all using fewer resources.
 
The challenge, particularly in Asia, boils down to this: Companies must address difficulties in acquiring quality data from inconsistent data sources across front-, middle- and back-offices.
 
They must rationalise multiple redundant sources of information stemming from disparate legacy systems using varying data shapes and models. They need to eradicate gaps in data workflow with technologies that move the right data to the right applications.
 
To do so they must invest in technologies that have the flexibility and adaptive relevance to manage transparency across multi-market evolving regulatory frameworks.
 
Companies in Asia that best understand and address these challenges can turn them into new opportunities to build a competitive edge.
 
In fact, while failing to address the challenge would have dire consequences, conversely many Asian firms and international companies with operations in Asia also have a unique opportunity.
 
Less burdened by legacy, complexity and intransigence of old systems, embracing new enterprise approaches offers the tantalising prospect of being able to leapfrog traditional competition – to embrace the next changes without being constrained by decisions made five or 10 years ago.
 
So, as we move into 2014 and enter the Year of the Horse, we see the need for most companies in the financial services sector to address these challenges at a gallop, rather than a trot.
 
We expect CTOs and CIOs to be sharpening their focus – and their spend – on acquiring quality data, working to better organise and move that data around the enterprise and to find new and better ways to use data effectively.
 
As the environment for customers has changed, the financial services industry has also had to respond to those new imperatives.
 
Increasingly, information needs to be comprised of high-quality content to fuel the trading workflow – data that is bespoke, accurate and dependable – backed by solutions that are both scalable and adaptable.
 
Real-time, reference and pricing data managed and accessed across market data platforms and applications executed through order management and electronic trading are increasingly in demand.
 
An enterprise data management approach that also supports rigorous risk management and reporting has become fundamental to dealing with market evolution.
 
Critical content needs to be distributed effectively to key decision makers. And to get ahead of big data, managed services provide proven ways to manage large volumes of data with speed, efficiency and precision.
 
All companies recognise the need to manage big data more efficiently. The speed of investment and innovation in a smarter enterprise workflow will be a key determinant of the winners and losers in the financial sector in 2014. It’s a core business priority, not an IT abstract.
 
Azhar Muhammad-Saul is head of Technical Sales and Client Services, Bloomberg Enterprise Content & Distribution, Asia Pacific
 
Related Stories:
 
FSIs urged to exploit tablets
 
Banks should be banking on APIs and apps, not applications
 
 
For more technology news and the latest updates, follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn or Like us on Facebook.