Nearly 60 per cent of Australian-based institutional investors and asset managers expect the institutional financial services sector to “meaningfully adopt” artificial intelligence (AI) technologies within just two years, according to Northern Trust.
Institutional investors and managers based in Singapore and Hong Kong also predicted widespread embracing of AI, but over two to five years instead.
Half the survey respondents in Australia flagged high level stakeholder engagement and counter-party cooperation as crucial to the financial services industry’s adoption of blockchain technologies.
In Asia, key concerns focussed on a need for greater clarity in understanding the regulatory landscape should the industry implement blockchain.
Half of respondents in Hong Kong and nearly 40 per cent in Singapore pointed to this need.
“In Asia-Pacific we have seen regulatory changes either built within existing policy frameworks, or shifted, as the market landscape transforms,” Northern Trust head of Global Fund Services for Asia, Caroline Higgins, said.
She said that this meant it was important that financial institutions, technology enablers, regulators and governments collaborated to support the adoption of emerging technology.
Northern Trust head of Market Advocacy & Innovation Research, Asia Pacific, Danielle Henderson, said the AI would lead to greater operational efficiency, more insightful information and enhanced client experience.
“Market developments may include machine learning capabilities for faster and deeper data consumption, advanced analytics for better decision making and natural language generation for automated report commentary,” she said.
The results came from a survey of investment manager and institutional investor clients attending Northern Trust events in the group’s Sydney, Singapore and Hong Kong offices during 2018’s first quarter.
