3 ms·

My understanding of technology as a competitive edge in finance is that: 1 - it's a relatively small part of the sector 2 - it happens in intervals Specifica

by latch 15y ago

My understanding of technology as a competitive edge in finance is that: 1 - it's a relatively small part of the sector 2 - it happens in intervals Specifically for #2, you can look at flash trading, where the edge exists for a while, but then everyone more or less catches up..and it's a couple years before the next innovation. Some other complaints: -Bank incentives are almost purely monetary (which does not work). -They tend to hire within the industry (it's an extreme place to find technical and managerial inbreeding). -They are extremely arrogant and prideful (making corrective measures hard to implement, since they aren't identified)

ig1 15y ago
It's actually much broader than just flash trading, essentially you can divide it by which part of the bank it occurs in. Any front office tech (risk management, pricing, analytics, trading) app tends to be on the competitive edge as does anything it relies upon (infrastructure, feeds, tick databases, etc.) Back-office technology (settlement, reconciliation, etc.) tends to move much slower. It also depends on the asset class, more stagnant areas such a mortgages tend to have more stagnant codebases than "hot" areas like FX. Competitive areas aren't the same across all firms either, while one firm might put a lot of money into it analytics technology another might ignore that area altogether and just buy in an off-the-shelf solution accepting that it's not going to compete in that area. Essentially the only way you'll know about the quality of the tech you'll be working with is to be smart and ask questions at the interview stage (this is true for any firm).
- calpaterson 15y ago
  > Essentially the only way you'll know about the quality of the tech you'll be working with is to be smart and ask questions at the interview stage (this is true for any firm). Cannot emphasise how important this is. No one discusses how to navigate an interview from the perspective of a potential employee.

by latch 15y ago

ig1 15y ago

It's actually much broader than just flash trading, essentially you can divide it by which part of the bank it occurs in. Any front office tech (risk management, pricing, analytics, trading) app tends to be on the competitive edge as does anything it relies upon (infrastructure, feeds, tick databases, etc.) Back-office technology (settlement, reconciliation, etc.) tends to move much slower. It also depends on the asset class, more stagnant areas such a mortgages tend to have more stagnant codebases than "hot" areas like FX. Competitive areas aren't the same across all firms either, while one firm might put a lot of money into it analytics technology another might ignore that area altogether and just buy in an off-the-shelf solution accepting that it's not going to compete in that area. Essentially the only way you'll know about the quality of the tech you'll be working with is to be smart and ask questions at the interview stage (this is true for any firm).

calpaterson 15y ago
> Essentially the only way you'll know about the quality of the tech you'll be working with is to be smart and ask questions at the interview stage (this is true for any firm). Cannot emphasise how important this is. No one discusses how to navigate an interview from the perspective of a potential employee.