Editor's note

Issue 393  June 2021

Subscriber edition

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People are looking for, and forward to, Big Data and AI

They have been touted for a while, but artificial and intelligence are garnering momentum.

January 2020 saw 193 artificial intelligence patents filed and this rose to 235 in March 2021. There was even a peak of over 250 in April 2020, according to GlobalData.

In addition, firms are looking for plenty of people in Big Data roles. According to GlobalData, the top five cities looking are in India, with Pune top with 1,914 roles. Bengaluru has posted 1,641 and Hyderabad posted 1,174 in the first quarter of the year. Singapore, Toronto, London and Chicago also had high posting rates in Q1 2021.

Questioned about the biggest wealth management operational challenge during the Covid-19 crisis, 46.7% of those engaged in the private banking space stated that retraining staff was their main concern. This compares to 22.9% in the cards and payments industry and 32.1% in the retail banking space, according to our Q2 2021 Financial Services Industry Poll.

GlobalData’s thematic research on artificial intelligence suggests that the market for AI platforms will reach $52bn in 2024, up from $29bn in 2019. Looking at present-day uses, it’s clear that a lot of that growth will be driven by computer vision.

This doesn’t necessarily have to be bad news as long as everything is handled with good public engagement, according to Zak Doffman, CEO of internet of things-enabled security company Digital Barriers.

“Let’s be very clear: a computer system is significantly better at recognising an individual than any human being in the world is, and it can do it across many more people, but it’s not flawless,” Doffman told Verdict Magazine. “Therefore it needs to sit as part of a process to quickly work through and then eradicate mistakes.”

“We feel that the industry has not helped itself by trying to run too fast and losing public support,” Doffman continues. “It needs to scale back. It needs to do this sensibly. We need to build on the success we’ve seen with identity assurance and educate the public that there is nothing to fear.”

The revolution is well on its way. Private banking companies need to accelerate their efforts or be left behind.

Patrick Brusnahan,
Editor