By Pulak Sinha, CEO, OnPepper
In business today, data is the watchword. From metaphors like “Data is the New Oil” to the hiring of Chief Data Officers in most large, progressive companies, the notion that Data is the single most important asset has come to the fore in international business.
Interestingly, some industries have adopted this notion late while others adopted the notion early. In Financial Services, and in Asset Management in particular, we’ve always known data is the lifeblood of the industry but, in a way, we suffered from early knowledge.
We adopted data strategies early and in fact many of the products and services we introduced into the market were born of these data strategies. In the world of technology, however, early adoption can mean two opposite things- great innovation on the one hand or legacy debt on the other! While Asset Management is one of the largest industries in the world and while it is one that runs on data, there have not existed tools to truly manage data properly until recently.
Here, the term “manage data” hides the complexity of the matter. Data comes in many forms, from many sources, and in many formats and speeds. All of these “streams” have to be integrated and then processed in a way that we can act on them, that is if they are to be useful. Legacy systems- systems ridden with technology debt- do not offer the agility we need to properly leverage data in this space.
Imagine on the other hand what Asset Managers could do if they could bring real data- comprehensive, contextual, and timely data- into play when deciding how to allocate new capital or how to re-jigger their current portfolio. With numerous asset classes under management and therefore numerous data standards and regulatory frameworks/compliance frameworks, the data wrangling is neither easy nor possible on legacy systems.
Cloud-native Fintech allows for the agility and “absorption” necessary to simplify the complexity. AssetTech is fundamentally changing with Cloud-native solutions. Such salutary changes will revolutionize Asset Management and reduce data silos- benefiting individual investors and Asset Managers alike.