Funds Congress, which took place in London on February 8, marked the opening of the conference season for the Investment Management industry in UK-Europe. Attendance was remarkable, especially during the live broadcast of Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart’s podcast, “The Rest Is Politics.” Congratulations to the organisers.
When introducing the two hosts, star broadcaster Kristy Wark referred to them as a “dream team” that managed to avoid being an “odd couple.” This drew genuine big laughs from the audience, but I couldn’t help but draw a parallel with a theme that was recurring during the conference: Investment Managers and Regulators are seeing eye-to-eye on a number of hot industry topics, and for once, complaints on a “regulatory tsunami” were quite muted. Instead, everyone was supportive of one another.
For example, there is a consensus across the continent that private assets will contribute significantly to the financing of the transition to a green economy. As a result, the industry is creatively creating products to attract retail investors towards this segment, which regulators are all supportive of. In our jargon – we like jargon in our industry[1] – this is called “retailisation of private assets.” Furthermore, there is a recognition that asset owners are increasingly scrutinising the ESG[2] credentials of asset managers, using the extensive sustainability data that the latter more and more willingly publish at the request of regulators. When an odd couple turns into a dream team …
But not all is perfect in dreamland. I rephrase. Work is still in progress. There was much discussion on the merits and benefits of digitalisation and AI for investors and the industry alike during the conference, yet, despite a few calls for caution on total reliance on machine intelligence, there was scarce mention of initiatives underway to regulate AI, on which the UK and Europe lead the conversations. It is maybe just a question of timing, as one regulator suggested, but I couldn’t help but notice the gap.
Why do these topics matter to us at Reseo? Because they touch on the core of our mission, which is to blend technology and investor-centric services to ensure continued financial trust while future-proofing the investment management industry for the digital generation. And for that to happen, we definitely need the industry and the regulators to see eye-to-eye.
Let’s hope for more and continued constructive debates in the course of this year.
And here’s to an encouraging start of the year for the industry.
PS – Please send me your favourite industry jargon, at psrahari@reseo.global. I will happily include it in my upcoming article.
[1] Industry jargon … this could be the topic of a full article in the future …
[2] ESG: Environmental, Social & Governance
