Top 5 Investment Banking Trends in 2018

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Top 5 Investment Banking Trends in 2018

August 2017 | INSIGHTS PAPER

Solve. Synergise. Surpass.

Foreword

The investment banking industry remains under immense pressure amid plummeting profits, regulatory roadblocks, high costs and shrinking trading commissions.

The inescapable reality can be seen in the stagnant profit levels for many years now. Globally, the return on equity (ROE) in 2015 stood at around 10%. Top investment bankers, who used to hunt elephants, have been reporting declining revenues, without any recovery in sight. For instance, the ramifications of Brexit were evident as top banks in the US reported a significant drop in revenue.

The macro environment has been hugely challenging for investment firms saddled with high operating costs. With sluggish economic growth and persistently dropping interest rates, the industry is likely to remain challenged by cyclical and structural factors. The capital requirements for banks (including hunters, midfielders and boutiques) have continued to increase. The latest wave of regulations like MiFID II and PSD2 will constrain the top-line growth and dent the overall earnings of banks. Apart from rising operational costs and stringent regulations, the FinTech is also affecting the industry's mainstream revenues. Financial institutions are losing much of their sheen while competing with traders who come armed with technology.

Additionally, in the face of adversity, banks are also taking a long, hard look at the investment banking landscape what was once a money-minting business. A slew of liquidity concerns across major asset classes are crimping the performance of banks and financial institutions. However, the prevailing business models in the industry cannot compensate the significant losses suffered by banks due to high employee attrition rates, resulting in workforce imbalance. In fact, the efforts of banks to rebalance compensation by cutting salary bonuses have backfired.

Banking experts no longer attach much importance to trading commissions owing to the volatile market scenario. Clearly, the challenges for investment banks are only growing as their clients are increasingly unbundling their business decisions based on the quickly changing market scenario.

Summary ? by looking simplistically, we get a true picture of the industry by assessing the various challenges, as we wouldn't want to trivialize the impact of challenges. Our observations reveal the five broad challenges faced by the investment banking industry:

? Aligning workforce with business objectives ? Structuring and executing technological reformation, adopting a strategic approach ? Reducing costs ? Renovating business models for boosting trading commissions ? Meeting customer demands and tracking their behavior

Trends

01 Digitization ? From Disrupted to Disrupter 05

02 The New Accent of Reducing Costs

10

03 Boosting Trading Commissions

15

04 Customer Centricity

20

05 Workforce of the Future

25

Getting to Grip

Investment banks require a fundamental change to deliver a sustained performance from their core businesses. Investment banks must focus on being transparent in their risk disclosures.

Solve

Investment banks (of all sizes) will need massive restructuring and strategic reorientation to cope with the upcoming regulations. And to tap into rapidly growing trade flows, banks must rejig their businesses in order to cater to product demands and service expectations of customers. In order to ensure banks are well equipped to compete, we have covered the broader aspects of the delivery model, with necessary insights to understand the complexities of the proposed reforms.

Synergise

Although countering risk management and compliance challenges are immediate priorities, banks must rethink about effective governance, reporting structures and decision-making capabilities. These actions would provide an opportunity for banks to review their loopholes. Clearly, it's not easy for banks to adapt to the transition phase; thus, there is a need to put in place a broad-level strategic response and mitigation plan.

Surpass

We're not just talking about "how-to's". Certainly, investment banks will thrive going forward. Moreover, as banks mobilize on different fronts like regulatory, technology, cost reduction and trading commissions, they will serve the interests of costumers with a strategic narrative. Industry players will soon make a radical shift in strategy and decision-making, leading to a future in which banks can walk down the `profitability path'.

An Industry Ripe for Change ? Investment Banks' Golden Age

TREND #1

Digitization ?

From Disrupted to Disrupter

Digitize or risk losing market share to competitors

Top 5 Investment Banking Trends in 2018: Digitization ? From Disrupted to Disrupter 5

It's no secret that investment banks (of all sizes) are under pressure to prune costs to cope with stringent regulations. This has resulted in banks jettisoning their business functions and trading desks. But the tough days for the CMIB industry is not over yet; investment banks can uncover new revenue streams by bolstering their innovative technology investments.

Investment banks can collaborate with technology service providers to standardize their back office functions, freeing up significant capital for reinvestment. For instance, USD4 billion of annual savings is estimated to be generated from trade processing.

Top 5 Investment Banking Trends in 2018: Digitization ? From Disrupted to Disrupter 66

Hunting Elephants with the New Digital Agenda

The industry is changing at a rapid pace, and technology is imperative for banks to proactively deal with changes

Investment banks (of all sizes) can use front office and back office technologies in an innovative manner, which will provide them a competitive edge.

Investment banks can establish customer portals to aggregate information and services across business functions. These dynamic portals would enable clients to access asset prices and execute against counterparties. Additionally, clients would be able to consolidate price and provide research guidance from multiple sources, while having a unified view of transactions.

Investment banking data has been traditionally aggregated by sell-side firms and has been opaque to clients. Banks can leverage their peer-to-peer digital model to facilitate easier and faster collection, aggregation and sharing of transaction data. This would boost data transparency, thus reducing the need for intermediation, which will contribute to market fragmentation.

Investment banks can leverage their cloud solutions with advanced analytics and complex-event processing technologies to enable real-time analytics. These solutions will help banks disrupt real-time compliance monitoring and collateral optimization, including supervision of changes in the value and quality of collaterals.

Top 5 Investment Banking Trends in 2018: Digitization ? From Disrupted to Disrupter 7

Creating Space for Digital Innovation

Investment firms, who have to grapple with stringent regulations, are witnessing a sharp drop in revenues amid a tougher capital regime. In addition, banks face an uphill struggle to transform their operations for aligning with technological obligations. An in-depth understanding of business challenges is essential to carry out the technological reforms. Banks can enhance their state-of-the-art systems and databases by working closely with trading floors, sales and middle office operations.

Banks can conduct a Strategic Technology Roadmap (STR) analysis that must involve a detailed view of existing infrastructure, benchmark against alternative solutions, and implement the near-perfect technology into the overall strategy including short, mid and long-term goals.

Investment banks must understand the entire value chain by analyzing key operational processes, process pain points of clients and assessing ROIs to be effective decision-makers. Additionally, banks must keep themselves abreast of new technologies for effectively positioning their business for the future. It is imperative for banks to make technology a management priority by making it an integral part of the board-level strategic planning process.

Top 5 Investment Banking Trends in 2018: Digitization ? From Disrupted to Disrupter 8

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