We asked some of the smartest minds in finance how Wall Street is going to change — this is what they said

Library of Congress

It's clear that technology is changing financial services at a rapid rate.

Business Insider surveyed a number of the brightest minds in financial technology, including chief technology officers at industry giants, chief innovation officers, startup founders and venture capitalists, and asked them one question:

What is the one thing that is going to change finance as we know it in the next decade?

Their answers varied, but there were a few common themes through them all.

The old models are changing, technology is automating and customizing traditional processes and the financial landscape will look drastically different in the future. 

Here is what they had to say:

Debra Walton, chief product and content officer at Thomson Reuters

Thomson Reuters

If I was forced to have to pick the one significant factor that could potentially have the greatest impact on the financial markets in the future, it would have to be the application and adoption of blockchain technologies.

Pundits spread themselves across the entire spectrum of opinion on blockchain, some believing it is a non-event, others forecasting annihilation of the capital markets as we know them today. 

Sitting here in my office in Baar Switzerland, in an area of the world rapidly emerging as the “crypto currency” capital of Europe – I firmly believe that blockchain will have as profound effect on the world of business and commerce as the internet, which since the mid-1990s has of course had a revolutionary impact.

The impact of blockchain will be most felt in how transactions are executed, cleared and settled.

David Reilly, CTO at Bank of America

David Reilly

Automation. Every week in the news we read about a new application for Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Neural Networks, or Robots – whether it is self-driving cars, AI assistants, predictive models, robots building (or printing) hardware, or how to invest our money.

Put these all in the category of automation – and that is what will impact finance the most in the next decade.

It will change how we insure property, loan money, invest money, deliver technology, write research reports, and what professionals in financial services do every day.  Our challenge will be how to differentiate ourselves and continue to deliver value to our clients as automation moves up the stack.

 

Sean Park, founder, chairman and chief investment officer at Anthemis Group

Anthemis Group

There isn’t just one thing that is going to change finance as we know it in the next decade, but an accelerating confluence of a number of technological and cultural trends.

Ubiquitous mobile computing, an exponential growth in data, and continuous advances in machine learning and AI - coupled with the coming of age of the Snapchat generation - will transform finance into an always-on, algorithmically-driven industry. Delivering value to individuals and enterprises in this new world will take a very different sort of firm.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider