Finextra Research: Latest fintech news, analysis, interviews, features and opinion by industry experts

Report

Don’t go extinct - How Wealth Managers can remain relevant

Transformation drivers and actions to prioritise Until recently, the wealth management industry in the UK has been largely homogeneous, with most traditional firms offering similar products and services to similar customers under similar business models. Fintech has been chipping away at these norms for a few years, but even in 2021, traditional wealth managers with rudimentary digital tools still dominate the market. However, the pace of change has accelerated in the last year. Newcomers are arriving in droves with engaging customer experiences, new technology and convergent services that address the historical limitations of the wealth industry, while opening new doors to new opportunities. Now Covid-19 has put the industry into the spotlight, exposing some enduring weaknesses and highlighting the need for modernisation. In a post-pandemic world, wealth management companies that are willing to innovate will begin to pull sharply away from those that are stuck in the past. Everyone hoping to remain relevant in this space - banks, advisory firms, asset managers, investment managers and technology providers - must be ready to drive transformation or risk extinction. Download your copy of this Finextra impact study, produced in association with Cognizant, to learn more.

29 November 2021 336 downloads

Report

The Future of ESGTech 2022

Employing Data to Deliver on the UN's SDGs The unrealised potential for data to serve fertile, yet dormant, use cases is limitless. Therefore, empowering the reclaiming and repurposing of data is paramount if data is to lead to all people living in peace and prosperity. This endeavour has not progressed due to the entities holding data being unwilling to exchange data over concerns around data protection and security or the prioritisation of the desire to capture direct returns on investment. Others may also be reluctant to share data in hope they gain market power or competitive advantage. In financial services, this has not been the case. With the second Payments Services Directive or PSD2, banks are required to open access to data and share with other organisations. This has increased transparency of pricing, improved security through authentication and verification and encouraged banks to use application programming interfaces (APIs) for this disclosure of information. This shift to a digital economy will continue and will result in an attraction to a platform where financial data can be used to offer value-added services to other industries. One example would be open finance, an API-enabled offering, now facilitates the sharing of financial products, data, and services between independent parties, going beyond the regulatory requirements set out around open banking. By utilising APIs, financial institutions can implement open finance solutions to offer people greater product choice and control over their finances and data. Repurposing different types of data can amplify the impact of data on economic, environmental, or cultural development, can help fill information gaps and cultivate new perspectives. However, the world is behind schedule on achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. This report will focus on specific targets, however, not all, and consider how environmental, social and governance (ESG) data can be utilised by financial institutions and fintech firms to achieve the SDGs and ensure global communities can migrate to a circular global economy.

26 November 2021 620 downloads

Report

The Future of Wealth Management 2022

A sector at the beginning of its digital renaissance. Increased digitisation of goods and services throughout the 2010s gathered pace long before Covid-19 turned the global outlook on its head. The pandemic served only to reaffirm this shift to digital as a matter of urgency. The wealth management sector was not spared the upheaval; however, it appears to be emerging from the crisis with an invigorated sense of progress. The disruptive forces of digitisation and Covid-19 are now joined by a groundswell of consumer expectation. This is clearly witnessed in the soaring uptake of retail investment tools and applications, greater access to financial instruments and widespread revolt against the traditional inaccessibility of financial services. This report, the Future of Wealth Management 2021 with interviews from Accenture, Coutts, Hargreaves Lansdown, Nutmeg, Oxford Risk, Tilney Smith & Williamson, and UBS Global Wealth Management will explore the forces currently shaping the industry. It will examine not only what these forces are, but how and why they form the structural foundation for a sector which is at the very beginning of its digital renaissance.

10 November 2021 1111 downloads

Report

Sustainable Finance Live - Valuing Nature: Better Assessing Financial Risk

A Visual Record from the Sustainable Finance Live workshops 11 - 12 May 2021. On 11 and 12 May 2021, Finextra and ResponsibleRisk brought together sustainable finance experts to discuss how financial services firms and technology companies can achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. Debunking the myth that revenue cannot be generated through trustworthy implementation of ESG measures, this programme of interactive co-creation workshops targeted a number of sub-sectors within financial services, and spoke to the specific challenges and opportunities through a lean back, lean in and learn model. The event explored how providing investors with dynamic data can help define the impact on both natural capital assets and dependencies on ecosystem services. This will be crucial for the future of our planet. In his recent HM Treasury-commissioned review, ‘The Economics of Biodiversity’, Professor Sir Partha Dasgupta stated that when considering this topic, it becomes a study in portfolio management, and we must approach it as asset managers. Today, nature is under-priced and under-valued. The best that each of us can achieve with our current portfolios will result in a collective failure. However, if biodiversity is viewed as a portfolio of natural assets, there will be increased resilience against the impact of shock. Download a Visual Record of the event below to find out more.

02 June 2021 80 downloads

Report

Fintech, ESG and IFCs: Embedding Sustainable Business Models

A Finextra Research Impact Study in association with Jersey Finance. While the landscape for financial services is currently being re-shaped by the twin trends of digital technology and the rapid rise of sustainable finance, leading international finance centres (IFCs), always nimble and adaptable, are seizing on the opportunities. Close analysis of these trends highlights an even more significant intersection at play with both these mega trends converging symbiotically, leading to fintech playing a part in the scaling up of sustainable finance, while the latter in turn accelerates innovation in fintech. Adoption of AI is improving the ability of financial service providers in leading jurisdictions, such as Jersey, to meet compliance needs, while also driving down process costs that might act as a barrier to sustainable finance. Equally, the growth in sustainable finance leads to greater demands for fintech solutions, adapted to the specific needs of IFCs. Evidence of these major trends and their impact on IFCs are included in the findings of this latest Finextra report, a study which Jersey Finance is pleased to support. As an IFC facilitating cross-border investment through our expertise in areas such as fund governance, fiduciary and administration for private wealth, we are focussed on enhancing our capabilities in the digital space, while sustainability is already integrated into our core offering. Furthermore, this symbiotic convergence is becoming a notable factor in firms’ service delivery within Jersey’s financial ecosystem. Firms such as Apex and IQEQ are tailoring their fund solutions to include new data-driven propositions, developing new tools that deploy the latest technologies to collect, evaluate and report ESG data. Sustainable finance solutions like this are seeing strong take-up by managers, keen to meet both the growing investor demands for transparency on the impact of their portfolios and to streamline their regulatory compliance under emerging frameworks, such as the EU’s Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulations (SFDR). It’s clear IFCs have a vital role to play during this global transition and leading jurisdictions such as Jersey, with long standing expertise in supporting cross-border capital flows and a flourishing fintech cluster, can call upon both these strengths as we gravitate to a more sustainable future. Download your copy of the paper below to learn more.

06 May 2021 290 downloads

Report

Wealth Management: Driving Transformation through a 360° Client Lens

A 360 degree customer view is fast becoming essential for financial organisations and wealth managers to compete and win in the digital economy – but integrating the vast and changing data sources is often a major challenge. In recent years, advances in technology, as well as global digitalisation, have ushered in new capabilities for banks, enabling them to understand their clientele better and, hence, serve them in a more efficient and tailored fashion. The customer 360 view has become a familiar term as organisations utilise increased data analysis to capture holistically customer behaviour and account patterns leading to more intuitive offerings and responses, stronger security and faster processes. It is the ‘who, what, why, when and where’ of customer lifecycle management. Wealth management, hitherto later to the digital party than other financial services segments, is recognising the benefits to be gleaned from data-led transformation – both those operating independently and those part of larger banks. Growth, leaner operating functions, easier compliance processes and cost savings are just some of the benefits to be had. Cloud is called upon to deliver new and differentiated service levels and organisations are increasingly looking for new and scarce skillsets. This Finextra paper, produced in association with MarkLogic, is based on several discussions with senior financial services and wealth management experts covering key business and technical drivers for creating the need for a 360 degree customer view, the challenges to be overcome in the process and the long-term benefits to be gleaned as a result. Download the full report below to find out more.

18 June 2020 558 downloads