FINANCIAL SERVICES
Over the last few decades there has been a series of substantial changes in the Financial Services industry. Recent advances in policy-making, regulatory framework, information and communication technology and risk management practices, all combined with the explosive growth in the volume of cross border capital flows, have led to an increasing demand for effective, efficient and prudent deployment of economic capital. The objective of this special issue is to bring together current theoretical and empirical research on the issues highlighted above and investigate their implications with regards to the Financial Services industry.
THE INDUSTRY
THE PROBLEM
THE OPPORTUNITIES
FORWARD THINKING
TITLE
“In financial services, the risk profile is dynamic and must incorporate emerging risks as they arise. It is important to broaden the assessment of risk with a focus on the critical assumptions underlying the corporate strategy.”
Some of the key issues facing the banking and financial services industry include risk
management, regulatory governance, customer acquisition and retention, core business
applications, payment systems and how to transform into a bank of the future.
So how does the financial industry go about turning these
challenges into opportunities? Technology. Not only can technology enable this transparency, its adoption is
essential to meet the expectations of a new generation of hyper-connected banking consumers.
The evolving role of technology in the financial services industry cannot be overemphasized. The Technological innovations are empowering institutions to slice, dice, process, manage and correlate data in ways that give it exponentially greater value in the eyes of our clients, allowing them to offer smarter choices to consumers.
TITLE
Technology has long been an essential behind-the-scenes partner in the financial services industry, providing the innovative incremental advances necessary for the industry to upgrade and expand its services. Improvements in storage capacity and processing speed, for example, have had a profound impact on data management and transactional capabilities, with accompanying reductions in cost. Yet
despite these and other advances, the industry has struggled to fully leverage the power and promise of technology, with market participants eager for solutions that are not only faster and cheaper, but that also offer greater security and efficiency.
Looking ahead, continuing advances in technology will allow the financial services industry to deploy
increasingly sophisticated, forward-looking analytics to help clients make more informed investing
decisions. Even at their most detailed, the financial reports of today can only provide the industry with a
glimpse in the rearview mirror. The financial reports of tomorrow, however, promise to help the industry
better understand the actual precursors of performance. In the not-too-distant future, rather than simply
providing clients with a simple description of their risk position, we will be able to provide them with
detailed insights into the actual factors contributing to those risk positions. The implications of this shift
cannot be overemphasized, as they will have reverberating effects on the habits, business processes and decision-making processes of institutional investors around the globe.