Financial firms that prioritize their technology and data innovation will experience a competitive advantage as they build a sustainable post-COVID-19 future. Mike Dionne, Regional Managing Director for the Americas, explains what’s required for a U.S. recovery.
- The new administration will tackle the intensifying COVID-19 pandemic and scale up a huge vaccination program as well as stimulate U.S. economic recovery.
- In order to foster an environment for recovery and growth, we will need to see a widespread commitment to stability and innovation.
- Wealth advisory is a crucial part of creating a sustainable recovery in the U.S that touches the entire population – with wealth transfer across generations, retirement planning and provision for new generations being key.
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Looking back on 2020, we experienced very significant challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic that will shape and influence the U.S. for many years to come. Looking ahead, the inauguration of Joe Biden as President and Kamala Harris as Vice-President on January 20 will mark a continued focus on addressing our country’s recovery.
Stimulating a U.S. recovery
With this change comes huge responsibility. It’s clear that the new federal administration faces immediate and unprecedented challenges. It will tackle the intensifying COVID-19 pandemic and scale up a huge vaccination program as well as stimulate U.S. economic recovery.
A Biden-Harris administration with a very thin margin of control in Congress will mean more moderate legislative change. Priority measures are expected to focus on controlling the pandemic and supporting the economy and society, with a further push for congressional action to increase the stimulus package.
The new administration’s expected policies will tackle climate change, rebalance the relationship with Big Tech and improve cyber resiliency for U.S. government systems. The new administration also favors large-scale infrastructure investments to help stimulate the economy. In financial services, we can expect to see more focus on executive accountability and conduct, environmental, social and corporate governance matters. As a priority, Biden and Harris will address racial and wealth inequality in the U.S.
But in order to foster an environment for recovery and growth, we will need to see a widespread commitment to stability and innovation.
Focused on reliability and service
At Refinitiv, we expect to reaffirm our own commitment to stability and innovation when we confirm our planned combination soon with the London Stock Exchange Group. Together, we are proud to share a 300-year heritage of serving financial communities across the world through good times and in more challenging conditions.
Thanks to our global leadership, experience and commitment to partnerships, our customers rely on our services, platforms and solutions to keep their businesses functioning while serving their own customers. As our business grows, we will grow with our partners. We’ll continue to innovate every day by building on our deep expertise and knowledge of local markets – and delivering the partnership benefits that our expanding global scale offers our customers.
Committed to championing innovation
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, our teams have been working with our existing and new customers to navigate highly volatile markets. As we look toward exiting the pandemic thanks to the amazing vaccine breakthroughs, technology and data innovation will be key factors in the recovery process.
As financial communities seek their route to recovery, the impact of the cloud, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) will be instrumental in supporting the US economy. In reality, scaled AI/ML is the new normal in financial services – and natural language processing (NLP) has gone mainstream by focusing on creating value from unstructured data.
Our recent research, The rise of the data scientist: Machine learning models for the future, communicates positive findings about maturing AI/ML. Companies are striving to deploy ever more sophisticated techniques at scale, such as deep learning. And next-generation AI/ML technology is enabling them to execute rapid innovation cycles. Let’s not forget that the technological advances that we witnessed in 2020 would have taken years or decades in more normal conditions.
How alternative data is unlocking possibilities
The way we interact with data is opening up more possibilities, helping to accelerate innovation and give us deeper insights when they are most needed. Our research discovered that only 3% of the financial firms that we surveyed don’t use unstructured data – that’s down from 30% in 2018.
QA Direct in the Cloud (QAC) released an alternative data set called LinkUp that tracks jobs posted by companies in a daily time series format. This company data is mapped to Refinitiv’s PermID to allow interoperability between data sets. Crucially, analysts would revise their estimates up or down in line with job creation or losses. So, combining LinkUp with I/B/E/S Consensus Estimates and StarMine SmartEstimates has the potential to give early indications of a company’s recovering – or failing – health.
For many of our customers, technology and data together provide the differentiated experience that sets the market leaders apart.
Delivering a leading platform experience
Responding to the needs of the dynamic wealth community where technology, disruption, cost and evolving investor demographics are changing fast, our trusted data, technology and expert human advice are a powerful combination.
We launched Refinitiv Workspace for Wealth Advisors last year (2020) to create a client-centric platform that simplifies the user experience while helping wealth advisors to deliver the excellent service that their customers demand.
Wealth advisory is a crucial part of creating a sustainable recovery in the U.S that touches the entire population – with wealth transfer across generations, retirement planning and provision for new generations being key. With Refinitiv Workspace, customers experience an innovative client-centric platform tailored for wealth advisors that delivers greater efficiencies and boosts client engagement.
Delivering great experiences and focusing on innovation is a differentiator – one that will separate market leaders from everyone else as we focus on the long road to recovery.
