Jamie Dimon, Chairman and Chief Executive of JP Morgan Chase, wrote in his most recent letter to shareholders that technology always drives change and that the waves of technological innovation are now crashing in more frequently. He said: “In today’s world, I cannot overemphasize the importance of implementing new technology.” The importance of technology was...Read More
On the 9th of March, the Financial Policy Committee (FPC) at the Bank of England published a ‘Financial Stability in Focus’ paper that laid out their thinking around the emerging world of crypto-assets and decentralised finance (DeFi) (click here). The discussion around these areas has, in my opinion, been dominated by mis-perceptions around what these terms...Read More
Creating the case for change can be challenging where the impacted areas operate within a traditional cost centre mindset. Management agendas are typically dominated by prescriptive, cost-based metrics which can stifle transformation where the gains appear marginal. This is increasingly the case where cost arbitrage has led to a migration of processes to lower cost...Read More
The unfortunate reality of post trade infrastructure within capital markets is that the inherent complexity built up over time makes transformative agendas a tough sell. Given that systems and processes have suffered from a lack of investment over a long period of time, transformation is usually more about fixing the domain rather than driving radical...Read More
On the 29th March 2021, the UK supervisory authorities publicised the final policy statements surrounding operational resilience. These had been in the pipeline since 2018, when the original discussion paper was published, and ends an extensive period of consultation across the industry. The objective had been to find a common set of standards across the...Read More
Two years ago, there was talk of a blockchain revolution in the post trade space, but in fact, there was little evidence of success in this area or capital markets in general. There were “proofs of concept”, small start-ups but not the big bang type of breakthrough that had been signalled. Confusion also reigned over...Read More
Over recent years, DLT solutions have been hailed as a driver for post trade transformation. 2021 is apparently the year that blockchain begins its climb out of the ‘trough of disillusionment’ according to the Gartner hype-cycle report of 2019[1]. What sparks this climb, according to the research, will be advances in technology and ‘pragmatic use...Read More
At the start of the year, the cost and complexity of the post-trade environment was already a challenge for most organisations. The global pandemic highlighted even further the stubborn post-trade problems that persist in the industry. And whilst fintech innovation may have flourished over recent years, many firms are still struggling to use it to...Read More
Solving for Post-Trade Data: Enabling, not Disabling, Innovation Held on 7th July, 2020 Following on from our recent publication on “Solving for Post Trade Data: Enabling, not Disabling Innovation in Capital Markets”, Ascendant Strategy hosted a panel discussion to discuss the challenges of data management and innovation in the post-trade space. In our original report,...Read More
As the industry pauses for reflection during the unprecedented times that the world now finds itself in, the role of technology and its potential to transform operating models becomes increasingly evident. Digitalisation was already at the forefront of the agenda for much of the industry, where leadership understood the transformational impact it could have upon...Read More
