Across the financial services industry, we are in a period of significant change – from the technology we use to do business, to the behaviors of new generations entering the workforce. Firms need to stay relevant to survive and digitization is key.
Related: Innovation from an Investor's Viewpoint
In the next five years, trillions of assets will transfer from Baby Boomers to Gen Z households. Unlike previous generations, Gen Z consumers and investors expect more targeted information, and wish to consume it via multiple channels. Mass marketing solutions are no longer enough; they are instead looking for a personalized experience.
For example, financial advisors would offer tailored portfolios and make adjustments in line with their Gen Z client’s major life events. In this landscape, digitization and artificial intelligence (AI) are two factors needed to scale and manage business revenue expansion and retention, driving a seamless experience through automation.
Value of Artificial Intelligence
Another driver for digitization is increased regulatory reporting requirements and expectations. About 80% of the data in the financial services industry is not yet digitized, meaning significant time from data scientists is required to curate a minimum set of data points needed for basic reporting and analytics. With AI, firms can automatically digitize, classify and extract the data – at scale – a key enabler of a customized client experience. Taking it a step further, that same data can be used to predict patterns, proving that the real power of AI is in its ability to be leveraged throughout the client relationship and process lifecycle.
As technology advances it provides the impetus for the next idea. Yesterday’s solutions are different from today and will be different again tomorrow.
Looking to wealth management products, mutual fund prospectuses are another solid use case for AI. At DTCC, we leverage AI capabilities to abstract more than 150 data points from hundreds of prospectuses each day. The process is fully automated with 90-95% straight-through processing, meaning no manual intervention is necessary for most of the work. Looking ahead, DTCC is currently working on a MVP (minimum viable product) that will extract and curate information from more complex prospectus in Asset Services and help us further enhance the experience for clients and regulators alike.
Staying Aligned for Digitization Success
As the landscape continues to evolve, it is crucial for IT and business partners across the industry to remain closely aligned on their digitization strategies. Firms that struggle with adoption are either not fully embracing and investing in digitization, don’t have enough focus at the top or don’t have enough time to market. When IT and business partners are collaborating and have cohesive objectives, this allows for better integration and creating an end-to-end strategic roadmap that harnesses emerging technologies and yields maximum benefits.
In the future, I see AI use cases continuing to expand and grow beyond data extraction, with predictive analytics capabilities becoming more commonplace to react to real-time opportunities in the marketplace.