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Ding-a-L-ING Group’s Deconstruction

On Monday, 3 October, ING Group - formerly the Netherlands' largest lender and one of the world's largest financial conglomerates - announced plans to cut 7,000 jobs from its ranks of about 52,000 in order to invest in digital platforms that are expected to generate annual savings of 900 million euros ($1 billion) by 2021. Beyond this, what is fascinating about ING is the rare glimpse it gives us into the post-global financial crisis (GFC) dismantling of one of [...]

By |October 4th, 2016|Open|

Thomson Reuters publishes “Quantifying the Transformation”

Everything takes longer than you initially think it will. Never a truer statement made, particularly when it comes to the following: Negotiated, commissioned and subsequently developed  - and then re-vamped - for completion on an expedited timeline last spring (2016), our first annual deep-dive study into technology spending patterns among the largest global banks was only recently published by client-partner Thomson Reuters. We have referenced this work and output regularly over the past several months, but there is [...]

By |October 3rd, 2016|News|

Navigational FinTelligence: The Method and the Madness

This post includes a metaphor, an anecdote and a vision.  Ready?  Here's the sketch: A magician - who was prone to playing the "long ball" - sought to develop the world's greatest card trick. True to form, the magician asks a volunteer to pick a card, sign his name to it, and put it back in the deck. The magician then claims to transport that card into a tree. When the tree was cut down immediately thereafter, the autographed [...]

By |September 23rd, 2016|Open|

Can (Digital) Transformation Be Measured?

A sextant is an optical navigation device used by sailors starting around 1730. With practice, it can prove quite accurate in plotting courses. Though the contemporary digital equivalent - a global positioning system (GPS) - has become the mainstream tool for navigation, sextants are still in use today among a small but avid group of yachtsman, survivalists and cognoscenti. Keep this migration in mind as we walk through today's question: Can (digital) transformation be measured? Our answer to [...]

By |September 20th, 2016|Open|

Bank Technology Rant: You are Noah, This is the Flood…

Do you recognize this guy above? That's right. He's Captain Obvious! Captain Obvious is the guy who preaches to the choir; tells Noah about the flood... Get it?  Good. Let's move on. Here's the translation for today's rant: "Noah" is a Top 10 investment bank, the "flood" in this case is McKinsey & Company, or - I suspect - any of the other global management consulting powerhouses. Today, I "learned" from both Financial Times and Business Insider the following (from [...]

By |September 16th, 2016|Open|

Back to the Front: Post-Trade Processing Getting Sexy-er

If you happen to hear the drumbeat of these things called "operational analytics" getting louder, then you just may be dialed in to the subtle downstream impacts of some of today's most common headlines related to financial enterprise transformation. For instance, the fintech revolution we are living through - with all its new-fangled and often overly-hyped gadgetry - is really about harnessing the opportunity for unprecedented process efficiencies. But, while it is a soothing distraction to daydream about deploying [...]

By |September 14th, 2016|Open|

#ResearchTools or Research ‘Tools’?

I have been holding on to this rant since Friday (unfortunately) - so here it is for your Monday morning coffee or commute enjoyment... Scenario: Surfing my Twitter feed and I stumble over a new piece of research (from a well-known group) which is being distributed and promoted by a well-known, bulge-bracket tech firm. The headline "hook" language is compelling.  It reads something like: "The essential ingredients for digital transformation" yada, yada.  So, I bite - recognizing the players [...]

By |July 25th, 2016|Open|

#Launchpad: Introducing the New Alphacution Website and Content

Our team has largely been on hiatus for the past couple months developing several new assets, including most notably our new Alphacution "content storage, distribution and promotion application" - er - website, and a bunch of new content to go in it which begins to showcase our research methodologies and initial modeling output. For the attention-deficit crowd (and those who are not already reading this on the site), you can skip the following shout-outs and contextual comments by [...]

By |July 19th, 2016|News|

Higher exchange fees for data seen after judge nixes SIFMA case

Originally published by Reuters here. Markets | Tue Jul 5, 2016 5:27pm EDT By Herbert Lash A judge for the Securities and Exchange Commission opened the door for U.S. exchanges to charge more for their high-speed data products, a move that could reduce the number of high-frequency trading firms that trade large quantities of securities. Brenda Murray, chief administrative law judge for the SEC, last month rejected a petition by a brokerage lobby to set aside fee increases [...]

By |July 5th, 2016|Press|

Investing in #Transformation: What’s the ROI? | Numerix Video Blog Series

Understanding FinTech #Transformation: In this FIFTH of a five part video blog series Jim Jockle, CMO of Numerix sits down with Paul Rowady, Director of Research at Alphacution to discuss the concept of #Transformation. Jim and Paul provide their perspectives on the latest examples of transformation they’re observing in the financial services industry specifically around the cross section of IT spending trends, software vs hardware investment, human capital expense, IT infrastructure, data management and risk analytics innovations. The [...]

By |May 17th, 2016|Video|