QuantMastery.com Quantitative Finance Newsletter
Related Articles
Technology, while a powerful modernizing force, cannot be implemented in a vacuum. In financial and commodity markets, as in most other industries, technology becomes valuable only when applied to business issues.
Cost pressures, impending regulatory changes, low trading volumes, and regulation have combined to create a dangerous crisis of confidence. In cooperation with the business side, advances in technology have the power to help the industry implement creative solutions to meet its challenges head on. In the midst of some of the toughest market conditions of all time, as an industry we are faced with many challenges. Perhaps the single biggest challenge for the financial industry is change itself. The story of financial markets has always been about change; how well or how poorly market
participants adopt or fail to do so has long been a determinant of success.
This rapid, concurrent change in financial markets and technology is putting pressure on firms in a variety of ways. But rather than view technological change as a problem, agile firms are turning to technology as a source of
competitive advantage; the field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), graphical processing units (GPUs), microwaves, and cloud computing highlighted in this book are delivering edges in speed and/or flexibility.
The current state of the economy coupled with the reputational damage incurred by the industry as a result of high-profile failures and cases of outright
fraud, are either the sole cause or a major contributing factor to almost every
challenge facing market participants today. Declining volumes and increased
competitive pressure are forcing fi rms to trim costs in order to remain in business.
Cost cutting aff ects a wide variety of business areas and, in the context
of this book, the pressure to rein in spending impacts cost centers like IT disproportionally.
Many of the leaders interviewed stressed the importance of a
technology strategic plan to assist fi rms in prioritizing IT projects.
