The next 75 years: will generalists or specialists prevail? City Talk To generalise or specialise? From the vantage point of 1947, when four financial analyst societies joined forces to create the federation now known as CFA Institute, that question may have had a different answer than it does for investment professionals today. Concentrated in New York and London, finance was hardly the world-spanning sector of 2022. [...]
T-Shaped Teams and the Three Stages of AI Adoption City Talk AI and data science will probably bring about the most significant changes to the financial services industry that the industry has witnessed in its short history. Yet, today, many financial institutions are still struggling to find their way to start the AI journey1. We propose a concept called T-shaped teams (See Exhibit 1) as the [...]
Emerging Asia-Pacific capital markets: challenges and opportunities City Talk CFA Institute has published ‘The Emerging Asia Pacific Capital Markets: Challenges and Opportunities’. The report, compiled by Larry Cao and Luis Garcia-Feijóo, presents perspectives from local authors on the financial history, current status and outlook for 11 countries. Their insights should be particularly valuable for prospective investors. Many have argued that the 21st century will [...]
AI and Big Data: Can they guide investors through the pandemic? September 1, 2020 The defeat of the top human Go player by the AlphaGo artificial intelligence (AI) in 2017 revealed to the public the world of possibilities that AI scientists had been quietly exploring for years. Driverless cars, AI doctors, and robo-advisers, among other innovations, all seemed within reach. Amid such promise and possibility, Roy Amara’s famous law was [...]
What can AI and big data do for finance? October 23, 2019 Larry Cao, CFA, is the author of AI Pioneers in Investment Management from CFA Institute. AlphaGo brought artificial intelligence (AI) out of computer labs and into the living room. From October 2015, when the AlphaGo AI first beat a professional human competitor, to January 2018, several months after it defeated Ke Jie, the top-ranked player in the [...]
What’s the difference between artificial intelligence, machine learning and deep learning? February 16, 2018 We are witnessing just the beginning of the artificial intelligence (AI) era. The computer program AlphaGo defeated the world’s top player in the complex Chinese board game of Go for the last time in May 2017. The program had run out of human competition. Instead, its developers designed AlphaGo Zero to simply play against itself [...]
Blockchain: Getting down to basics June 2, 2017 There has been much talk about blockchain disrupting the financial services industry. Earlier this month, IBM’s vice president of blockchain declared that ‘2016 was the year of blockchain experimentation,’ and ‘2017 is the year of adoption.’ (The fact that IBM has an executive with ‘blockchain’ in his job title is a data point by itself.) [...]
Fintech: How does Blockchain fit into the future of financial services? May 11, 2017 Blockchain is an often discussed, rarely understood topic. To get some perspective on the current thinking regarding blockchain, I had a discussion with Jennifer Qin, Deloitte’s lead partner for its investment management business in the Asia-Pacific region. Qin is a frequent speaker on blockchain technology. Larry Cao, CFA: What is blockchain all about? Jennifer Qin: [...]
Fintech: what will bring the most change? April 28, 2017 Fintech has increasingly captured the attention of the financial services industry over the past several years. Since I started writing on the topic about a year ago, the discussion has evolved from simply defining fintech to more involved narratives about its potential drawbacks. In that time, our focus on the subject has never wavered. Why? [...]
Fintech: three truths and two myths April 7, 2017 Neal Cross is the chief innovation officer of DBS, Singapore’s largest bank. His role affords him a unique perspective on many issues in fintech. We had a fascinating conversation on the subject. Below are some of the thoughts he shared with me. Myth 1: Fintech start-ups are at war with banks. Neal Cross: I think [...]
