Thomas Byrd 
Intertrust, leading administrative services multinational surveyed more than 500 capital market executives and the capital market to gauge the impact of disruptive technology like Artificial Intelligence on jobs, skills and the human-based existing systems. 14% of the respondents believed that AI has already outplayed the human-based credit systems. While a third of the participants supported the use of AI systems to take into account a broad range of data sources such as social media activity, retail spending habits, and even political bias has reduced the possibility of being biased or influenced by personal feeling or opinions.
Cliff Pearce, Global Head of Capital Markets at Intertrust was quoted saying, “The use of AI in credit-based decision making has become increasingly commonplace, with the potential to make quicker more accurate credit decisions based on an expanded set of available data.”
There was also a large section of the respondents that expressed concerns about privacy. About 36% suggested that tighter legislation is a must to safeguard borrowers’ rights when they apply for funding and to restrict the information included in the assessment of credit. The non-traditional data use might have overstepped the ethical line and must be better controlled.
Disruptive technology such as Artificial Intelligence, robotics, regulatory tech, and block-chain are impacting the finance industry. Financial services firms are broadly positive about the benefits and future of technology in adding value to the financial world at large. The research interestingly also highlights that even though multiple processes are being automated the human touch is still irreplaceable for crucial steps in the process.
Whether it is about Client-centric solutions, deriving insights and assessing the creditworthiness from numerous data sets or automating customer interactions disruptive technology offers many possibilities for the future of financial technology. Regulatory technology solutions will continue to be in demand for the next two years. Along with companies, regulatory agencies have increased the demand for technology like blockchain to ease the process of regulatory reporting such as KYC procedures and information gathering.
While financial technology creates exciting possibilities for the financial sector, cybersecurity is a serious issue that needs to be addressed with skill shortages amongst fund managers for relevant skill sets to assess the digital health of assets alongside financial metrics and security of assets. Financial firms are constantly looking for cyber and data handling skills in their recruits.