The Investment Operations Conference, held at The Westin in Sydney, has come and gone. AlphaCert was there in the form of our CEO, Phil Pietersen, who found it a worthwhile and valuable event with opportunities to network with people in the industry as well as catching up with old friends.
Over 250 specialists in the investment management operations sector attended, and everyone enjoyed a wide-ranging agenda that included speakers from around the globe. The whole idea was to shine a spotlight on the most pressing issues facing the ‘middle office’ of the institutional investor, including cyber-security, block chain technology, geopolitical risks, regulatory pressures and operational due diligence.
Australian Super’s internalisation journey was of particular interest, as AlphaCert’s has supported them on that journey. It was presented very well by senior manager Sean Ryan. Then there were specialist presentations on operational due diligence items such as RG97 and a methodology for securities lending.
Towards the end, presentations on blockchain innovations in capital markets by SETL’s CEO, Peter Randall, were particularly thought provoking as this is technology on which AlphaCert is currently doing in-depth research and development. Blockchain is poised to revolutionise the capital markets industry, so AlphaCert is currently building a framework to integrate into publicly available blockchain-based distributed ledgers.
There was also a session on the current state of AI in investment operations, presented by Richard Kimber from Daisee. He outlined the opportunities, challenges and the reality of where AI is today, and where it’s headed in the future. AlphaCert’s work in this involves currently working on a Microsoft Azure machine-based learning framework for integrating internal data sources with external data repositories, which will be announced later in the year.
Overall, it was a great conference that provided many valuable insights and opportunities.
If you want some more insights into enterprise data management in the investment sector, please download our eBook on EDM best practice.