Please allow me to share an internal email that I sent to my team today.
Dear team,
I’m baffled…baffled by the statements of one of the large asset managers in the world, Amundi, after reading an article by Robert Van Egghen in Ignites yesterday where he addresses their response to the European Commission’s consultation on FinTech.
According to the article, Amundi is sounding the alarm on job losses as a result of FinTech (innovation). They are warning against enthusiastically adopting financial technology solutions, saying it could lead to workers losing their jobs, jobs that will require a different skill mix to the jobs being lost. Amundi goes further by commenting about a detrimental effect on jobs which could be bad news for investors if the digital tools do not deliver the promised improvements in operational efficiency.
This mindset is exactly the reason why companies such as Adyen, Transferwise, Betterment, Oscar and our company have been founded. Instead of Amundi embracing these FinTechs, new technology, different skills and innovative mentalities, they are cautioning against it. Feels a little bit like people warning against the dangers of cars when the horse and carriage got replaced, doesn’t it?
They are slightly overlooking the technological developments that are already improving the financial services industry (to be fair – they did refer to some minor benefits):
- Introduction of ATMs reducing the burden on high-street banks (a cash machine is just a piece of software)
- Online banking reducing the sheer volume of postal mail (and hopefully pretty soon cheques)
- Digital and online payment solutions reducing the need for slow money transfers/use of cash/ etc. etc. etc.
No matter how wide the consensus, no matter how fierce the pushback, we have to continually prove that it CAN BE DONE! Thankfully the article also states different opinions such as that of Fiona Frick, CEO of Unigestion. She emphasizes that digital tools are “not there to take their job but to help their job” by “upgrading archaic processes”.
Team. Let’s all pull together in reducing the millions of faxes being sent out every year, the hassle of consumers being bombarded by paper-based, form filling exercises when they just want to access their own money, the millions of cheques being used, et cetera et cetera. And, one day, when we succeed, we will be visiting the likes of Amundi in a FinTech museum lined up next to old cheque books and broken fax machines… not dissimilar to the almost extinct horse and carriage.
Please read Amundi’s full response if you are interested as there are of course multiple angles to every story. But the fact remains that even stating a warning sign in respect of “loss of own jobs” before putting the interests of consumers first is not the way to go. Thanks Robert for addressing this (and for the reality check).
Best,
Angelique
