April 13, 2021 | Stamford, CT — Half of financial market professionals participating in a new study from Greenwich Associates think the challenges of working from home in 2020 actually made markets more efficient by accelerating the uptake of digital communication and collaboration tools.

Almost 80% of the financial market professionals participating believe that technology innovations over the past five years have made markets better and more efficient. Nearly 70% of study participants working for buy-side firms and 40% of sell-siders believe work-from-home accelerated that trend last year. 

“Looking to the post-pandemic period, even bigger shares of market participants expect technology and automation to deliver more transparency, higher quality executions and lower prices for clients over the next three to five years,” says Kevin McPartland, Head of Research in Greenwich Associates Market Structure and Technology group and co-author of The Future of Capital Markets Collaboration.

Financial Industry Faces Unique Challenges
While virtually every industry was forced to adopt video conferencing and other new digital tools to facilitate work-from-home last year, the financial services industry faced some unique challenges. 

For example, the expanding use of digital communications channels represents a significant challenge to compliance departments. While most major regulators issued blanket forgiveness for communications monitoring lapses, recent releases reflect a tougher stance, and internal teams and third-party technology providers have been scrambling to expand communications channel monitoring and surveillance alert capabilities. 

“The need for robust surveillance and compliance capabilities and integration with other core technology platforms is guiding some financial services firms to gravitate toward technology solutions designed specifically for the financial market, as opposed to some of the more popular communication apps,” says Danielle Tierney, Senior Advisor for Greenwich Associates Market Structure and Technology and co-author of the report.