Investment Industry: Tech, Crypto, and Risk

Investing in Skill and Technology?

Investment industry trends broadly fall into one of two buckets: those that have newly emerged, and those that have always been around but have recently undergone change. Either way investment firms require rapid understanding and adjustment to avoid being saddled with technical debt from inefficient tactical solutions. Newly emerged themes include digital assets and cryptocurrencies, and for recently developing trends we can talk about investment technology and operating model efficiency. Our selection of papers covers these areas and more, starting with Man Group’s view on assessing investment manager skill.

Investing in Skill (Man Group, Mar 2022)

This article explores considerations when judging an asset manager’s investment performance, warning recruiters and allocators not to assume that an objectively strong track record always implies investment skill, and that customised assessment metrics should be preferred.

Investment Technology: Surviving or thriving? (Finbourne Technology, 2022)

Technical debt describes the inefficiency of tactical solutions that asset managers implement over the course of time in preference to developing permanent strategic alternatives. Finbourne Technology discusses this and how it may affect the industry going forward.

Key Questions for Digital Asset Regulation (Oliver Wyman, Mar 2022)

The development of Bitcoin and other digital assets has created a need for an updated regulatory framework to support it. Oliver Wyman reviews some of the primary drivers on a global scale, and takes a deep dive into the possible path for the United States.

Investment Strategy Commentary: Cryptocurrencies (Northern Trust, Mar 2022)

Is the crypto market that investors are witnessing today reminiscent of the 1990s tech stock bubble? Back then the internet had burst onto the scene, now it is blockchain. Northern Trust reviews crypto’s return and risk profile and explains their investment approach.

2022 Global Investment Operations Priorities (SimCorp/WBR)

With technological innovation as a key theme, this report gives insight from 200 heads of operations across the globe on their vision of a best-in-class operating model, including reporting and data management, and what the future holds for people and the workplace.

What Percentage of Women Serve in Investment Roles? (Alpha Architect, 2022)

This research shows stark results when considering the percentage of Head of Investment Banking, Head of Research, and CIO roles held by women. A breakdown by job role and country is provided for context, before a brief academic review.

Machine Learning Risks & Opportunities in Finance (Global Risk Institute, 2022)

This paper analyses adversarial machine learning, which is a term for malicious attacks against machine learning models. The authors cover the types of attacks relevant to financial services, potential opportunities, and questions to ask of risk management.

Global Pension and Sovereign Funds Risk Management Survey (KPMG, 2022)

This survey discusses trends in risk management including detailed analysis and conclusions on a number of sub-topics. With organisations putting increasing focus on risk management, the authors suggest a proactive rather than reactive approach is required.