Innovation
IBM bets big on generative AI
Although Q2 revenue was flat year-on-year, it was buoyed by IBM’s hybrid cloud and AI strategy. The tech giant will build up its AI capabilities similarly to how it’s dealt with Red Hat OpenShift.
State of the tech: A half-year check-in with large language models
AI is having a moment, and data vendors and software providers are seizing on it. Some are building models in-house, while others are looking to third parties to power their strategies—but the focus is largely on productivity and faster data access…
Banks’ internal watchdogs bark back at ChatGPT
Generative AI has plenty of uses in finance, but banks must first overcome compliance headaches
Automation in fixed income: Sorting the bluster from the bleeding edge
Automation is gaining traction in fixed-income markets, but use cases are limited and progress is slow. Market participants must overcome some uniquely human problems before they fully embrace the machine.
Questions surround buy-side tech consortium Hub
Little has been heard of the company formed by Pimco, Man Group, State Street, IHS Markit, Microsoft, and McKinsey since their announcement in January 2021.
Hidden danger: As AI permeates finance, cybersecurity moves to the forefront
Open-source wrappers like MLflow, though useful and popular, highlight the risks hidden beneath these models.
Tomorrow’s institution cares more about its risk than its performance
Execs from BlackRock, BMO, and Ness Digital Engineering discuss the balancing act of the wildly shifting priorities each of their organizations contend with every day.
Waters Wrap: Regtech hype evolves—for better and worse
As fines levied by the FCA and SEC rise, so too has spending on 'regtech.' But Anthony warns that for the regtech space to evolve further in the future, it must first initiate changes to its ecosystem.
Waters Wrap: Blockchain—let’s put the hammer back in the box
With the ASX Chess DLT failure and users ignoring DTCC’s DLT option for its Trade Information Warehouse, Anthony wonders what it will take for the industry to stop touting this buzzword for non-specialized needs.
S&P Global–IHS Markit post-merger: One giant leap for data analysis?
The combined entity will look to tap into AI tools provided by S&P’s Kensho outfit and AWS’ cloud to build new analytics platforms.
Winners and losers from the post-trade tech revolution
As the pace of tech evolution increases, Christian Sjoberg says firms that aren’t investing in new technologies to solve old post-trade problems will be left behind.
New chatbots reveal limitations of legacy API development
As large language models that underpin the likes of ChatGPT and Bard come to market, vendors and trading firms are starting to see the benefits—and challenges—that open APIs provide.
DTCC’s blockchain for CDS trades finds no takers
Sources say the industry is not yet ready to fully adopt wide-scale implementations of distributed-ledger technologies.
OK regulator? How AI became respectable for AML controls
Dutch court case pressures supervisors to accept new tech; explainability the key challenge
Spreadsheet interoperability: Or how companies learned to stop worrying and love Excel
While Microsoft engages in a tech arms race for chatbot and cloud supremacy, interop firms are attempting to remedy some of the idiosyncrasies of its monolithic spreadsheet software.
Waters Wrap: ChatGPT, data officers, and reaching new frontiers
As banks clamp down on large language models like ChatGPT, Anthony says that CDOs can help firms experiment with these chatbots while developing the proper governance structures.
Confidential computing won’t save you from data breaches—but it can help
A Google exec and a Stevens Institute director lay out the potential and the pitfalls of this emerging cloud computing technology for data protection.
MSCI’s multi-cloud strategy aims to provide a new window into investment data
The MSCI One platform already runs on Microsoft Azure, and MSCI is building a new investment data platform on Google Cloud to utilize the search giant's AI and NLP capabilities.
Waters Wavelength Podcast: The case for DLT in post-trade
Jerome Kemp of Baton Systems joins the podcast to discuss DLT in post-trade.
New tech disrupts traditional book-building process for institutional investors
Automation is long overdue in the book-building process for publicly listed equities. One startup hopes to bridge the gap.
Industry participants: ‘Digital Token Identifier’ aims to increase interop, usage
While some trading firms are welcoming the use of a new non-proprietary code for identifying digital tokens, the onus will be on local regulators to enforce its adoption.
Bank-backed Versana takes aim at syndicated loan tech
Born from a consortium that includes JP Morgan and Bank of America, Versana aims to bring up-to-date and permissioned data to the syndicated loan market—the first step to a more transparent and faster operating market.
Waters Wrap: ChatGPT and the next wave of AI evolution
As the December holiday break loomed, a new tool released by OpenAI had engineers, analysts, programmers and even writers like Anthony wondering what the future of their professions might hold.
Here’s what ML and NLP powered in capital markets in 2022
As machine learning and natural language processing continue to spread across the industry, WatersTechnology highlights stories from 2022 that feature new use cases.