It was an honour to participate as a panelist in the 6th annual "Impact of Technology on Debt Capital Markets" event.
To share one of my key takeaways: there’s a lot of great innovation taking place all along the DCM process and bond lifecycle. However, as of yet, there is no single, end-to-end, straight-through processing solution that will digitalise the entire bond market.
And guess what? There probably never will be.
The good news is, there will be the next best thing to a single integrated solution: An interlocking solution from different providers, each covering part of the value chain alongside each bank’s unique proprietary tech stack. This will one day deliver that combined experience. And the commitment from the providers for that interoperability is clearly there.
Perhaps paradoxically, this means that there is now a clear early-mover advantage to be seized by banks. Because digitalising DCM is like building a giant puzzle. And as each bank also contributes their own (tech) pieces to that puzzle, the final picture looks slightly different for every bank.
Anyone who ever implemented a transformation project in a big organisation will tell you that changing business processes is hard. And when it involves multiple external stakeholders, the complexity increases exponentially.
Banks who plan to assemble the puzzle in one fell swoop when, one day, the time is right will be in for a nasty surprise. And the banks who’ve been advancing step by step, interlocking one piece after another, will come out as the winners.
So, my advice: start by solving your one or two biggest pain points and go from there.
Thanks to Events Radar, Keith Mullin and my fellow panelists for a great discussion.
Stephan Gimpel
CEO & Co-founder
Bond Origination Technologies (Bots)