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At the recent CorpActions conference in London, we had the opportunity to be part of a panel with leaders from SIX and Symphony to discuss the future of corporate actions. This event provided a unique opportunity to explore how technology is redefining day-to-day operations in the financial sector. The event also marked the launch of SIX's new chatbot (powered by ipushpull) allowing their clients to query their corporate actions data. In this blog, we cover the key themes and insights from our discussion.
Technology at the Forefront: Reshaping Corporate Actions
At first glance, it may appear futile to pursue innovation in the Corporate Actions market. With strict regulatory governance, one could assume it hampers creative thinking. However, in reality, the market's competitiveness necessitates innovation, driving it forward.
We started by examining the intersection of technology and corporate actions. Yogita Mehta, Commercial Product Director at SIX emphasised innovation's role in risk mitigation and operational efficiency. An area ipushpull excels at, bridging the inertia gap that often occurs between established systems and working practices and the desire to embrace cutting-edge technology and new ways of working. We sometimes find prospects are struck by the pace of technological change into a type of paralysis, not knowing when or where to invest.
Revolutionising Operations: The Introduction of the SIX Bot
A pivotal point of the discussion was the introduction of the SIX Bot, a groundbreaking chatbot developed in partnership with SIX. This bot, integrated with ipushpull, provides real-time corporate action data to over 600,000 financial market professionals on Symphony. The SIX Bot exemplifies how automation is transforming corporate actions, offering a new level of operational efficiency and speed.
Bridging the Gap: Navigating the Innovation Divide Between Front and Back Office
Elena Parigi Adragna, Director - Operations Workflows at Symphony spoke about the constant challenge of driving through operational efficiency projects where the budget for innovation tends to sit with the front office, however, the pain of issues such as trade exceptions lies with operations. Unless sales feel the pain of these inefficiencies, it's unlikely to attract significant investment and therefore change.
This is where ipushpull has gained significant momentum. Empowering existing chatbot services to offer a more proactive experience to clients, often results in increased trade volumes and greater satisfaction among clients and sales teams. Moreover, the quick implementation process ensures speedy and impactful outcomes.
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Demonstration of the SIX Bot at CorpActions 2023
Securing the Future: The Digital Transformation Journey
The key to driving innovation lies in seamlessly delivering data through existing channels, resulting in a streamlined onboarding process and simplified operational tasks. This approach strikes a perfect balance between innovation and stability while also offering the added benefit of leveraging established security access models like SSO for enhanced control. Additionally, this approach democratises data by providing clients with technology solutions instead of requiring them to design their own interfaces.
Elena highlighted the growing importance of providing a real-time market view. This necessitates the automation of front-to-back processes, as digital transformation has evolved from a luxury to a necessity. She emphasised the significant role that bots play in the banking industry's workflows, leveraging open APIs to seamlessly pull and push information in real time and in a structured manner. This ultimately leads to enhanced efficiency on a large scale.
From Data Discrepancies to Actionable Insights
We all agreed on the need for innovation to address issues like data discrepancies. The SIX Bot, with its ability to provide detailed corporate actions data, including event types and key dates, marks a significant step in this direction.
Moving away from bespoke workflows, the market needs standardised solutions which fit all the financial market, not just isolated firms. Also, it is paramount that good quality data is shared and presented in a standardised and structured format which everyone can easily consume. Good quality data in a free format data doesn’t bring any efficiency as it needs to be manipulated before being consumed. This is why the use of bots brings so much efficiency to the day-to-day work. In a matter of seconds, you can pull and enrich information and present it in a format ready to be consumed.
Forging the Future: Selecting the Right Partners
Choosing partners who share a common vision for innovation is of utmost importance. The collaboration between SIX, Symphony, and ipushpull serves as a testament to the influential role strategic alliances play in propelling industry advancement. It is crucial to select partners who possess distinct market expertise. In the case of the SIX Bot, Symphony brings expertise in instant messaging, while we excel in delivering data in a structured format to chatbots, as well as Excel, browsers, and APIs.
The Road Ahead
In conclusion, the panel looked towards a future where automation and digital transformation are not just aspirations but realities. Tools like the SIX Bot are leading the charge, transforming how financial market professionals interact with and process corporate actions, supporting the market's need for fast, quality data access. Want to learn more? Why not read our blog on everything you need to know about data on-demand chatbots but were afraid to ask!
