Open

Disintermediation. And, desperation. That's what this is really all about. Together, these drivers produce an enormous amount of hype; a mixed wave of cryptocurrency insanity (and some blockchain legitimacy) washing over the global financial landscape... These days, it seems possible to transform any topic, no matter how dry or serious, into an all-out circus. And, it can be difficult - even for those most disciplined at rationing their limited attention - to look away as the spectacle unfolds. I mean, who can resist a tale that includes cornering the market on graphical processing units (GPUs), "chestahedrons," an Icelandic datacenter, the money flower, FUD and FOMO - among many other attention-grabbers? The Disintermediation Driver Now, typically, when the crowd rushes in one direction, I prefer not to follow - or, sometimes, head in another direction. Call it a bad case of intellectual claustrophobia. As a result, I haven't been eager to weigh in on any of this craziness. However, thankfully, the Swiss-based Bank for International Settlements (BIS) - sometimes otherwise known [...]

Take a deep breath... Focus your attention... And then consider: How bad do you want it? As a fellow #fintech entrepreneur, the reason I pose the question is that mass disruption and disintermediation (of status quo business models and "analog" workflow processing methods) is already here, and accelerating. In fact, chances are, you are involved in developing a digitally-savvy venture - likely related to #AI or #blockchain or #bigdata or #IaaS or even #cryptocurrencies - right now. We are living in a truly amazing and unprecedented period in history. And, should that venture be successful, your efforts will add to that disruption, winning you and team an invitation to the "other side" of fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD), but also further perpetuating the ongoing skills mix shift to a more globally-diversified STEM workforce (weighted towards lower-cost regions), and continue the displacement of non-STEM personnel, many of whom are middle-aged, mid-management market veterans (some of whom with a woefully under-appreciated cache of rare, indigenous knowledge). What's more, our current techno-economic paradigm [...]

Alphacution has devised a method to arrive at the most highly credible estimate for what any asset manager spends on technology, no matter their level of financial disclosure. And, the implications for that discovery are huge... Clearly, this is a bold, provocative - if not, entirely ludicrous - claim. And yet, we still make it, out here in the open, with confidence - thanks to our collection of data. Here's why: There is a persistent relationship between assets under management (AUM), technology spending, and headcount. The change in these factors is predictable along a continuum of AUM - and repeatable from period to period. With a wink and a doff of the cap to our old pal, Pythagoras, we only need to know two of these factors - AUM and headcount - in order to reliably guess the third - technology spending. (And, sometimes, we only need to know one factor to get in the range...) Here's another way to think of it: If one were to build a "context [...]

What happens when a company is smart enough, productive enough and wealthy enough to succeed in any business? One thing's for sure: the roster of incumbents and would-be competitors threatened by that kind of company becomes an extremely long list. This is a threat like none other before because never before has a type of company been able to be so disruptive in so many places simultaneously... In unprecedented fashion, the digital era has given rise to a few companies whose dominance symbolize such traits. This story is not particularly new, nor are the names of these digital darlings cause for surprise. Management consulting powerhouses, like McKinsey and Accenture, have been detailing the possible threats of Amazon or Google or Apple on the banking industry for the past three years, particularly since the launch of Apple Pay. All the major media outlets, like Bloomberg, and industry specialist reports, like American Banker, have been watching this story unfold as if they were slowly eating from an endless tub of buttery popcorn. [...]