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“There is not a massive amount of an-
alytics being used here because they are
not profit generating places,” says Virginie
O’Shea, research director, Aite Group.
“You’re not getting rid of people with
robots because the technology is very
expensive—until this comes down in price
and is offered by big household vendors it
won’t happen.”
A relationship business
Robotisation has been a subsidiary focus
in securities services because of its lack of
contribution to strategic processes which
remain very much reliant on the input
of human beings and the ability to build
relationships.
“Relationships are always going to be an
important factor in sustaining business
and business growth,” says Mark John,
head of product and business develop-
ment for EMEA at Pershing. “Automation
allows for that shortening of the settle-
ment cycle, which in turns allows for re-
ducing risks. However, the impact of hu-
man resources is felt in the middle-office,
where relationships with counterparties
are essential in expediting any post-trade
anomaly to ensure that settlement occurs
on time.”
Perhaps the steepest and potentially
most dramatic upheaval to the finance
“Blockchain could certainly
help automate some
components of the
settlement process such as
reconciliation and corporate
actions.”
JEFF CONWAY, CHIEF EXECUTIVE,
EMEA, STATE STREET
business is now coming with the intro-
duction of artificial intelligence (AI) into
the custodial and asset servicing world.
Human roles are under more pressure
in processes where machines can usurp
functions which require thought or deci-
sion-making aptitude.
Chris Rowland, global head of custody,
JP Morgan, says that the bank has already
been looking to leverage the benefits of
machine learning and AI to enable pro-
cessing of more complex algorithm-based
transactions.
“Robots can help with enhanced process
automation, creating systems that lever-
age learning capabilities for judgment
orientated tasks in areas like fax and trade
file management,” he says.
We come in peace
Others like State Street have been collab-
orating with investment firms to use AI in
the investment process. Earlier this year,
State Street launched a project with Axa
Investment Managers and MKT Medi-
aStats, to find technology which evaluates
data-driven indicators to help analyse
economic and market information within
the investment process.
Many believe that the potential for a
robotic revolution should not be viewed
as a threat but as a positive for the whole
industry. But potentially those who voted
against the usurpation of their roles by
robots might have been swayed by the
lack of an immediate threat to their roles.
According to O’Shea, machine learning
and artificial intelligence needs a certain
amount of industrialisation before it
can be fully embraced by the financial
services industry—and this will take some
time to implement.
“If you’re going to apply industrialised
technology you need it to be fully indus-
trialised and standardised,” she says. “You
can’t have everyone doing different things
it needs to be homogeneous.”
Despite the focus on it, robotisation in
finance is still not at a stage where it is
likely to cause too many people working
in the business to have sleepless nights.
Key attributes like relationship-manage-
ment and creative intelligence have not
yet been replicated by robots. Change
is coming—but it seems to be more of a
long-term evolution than the robotic rev-
olution being spoken of in the media.